Coconut & Jasmine Green Tea Rice Pudding

This was superb. My fascination with green tea has begun.
It started with a brief recipe I sighted in an asian cookbook for green tea rice pudding - the traditional japanese way.


I had a quick search and found a recipe at Tiffany's Recipe Box for Coconut Green Tea Rice Pudding and adjusting according to what we had in the cupboard, as well as this neat post on 17 and Baking, this is what I came up with.

4 cups of boiling water
4 tbsp of jasmine green loose leaf/plunger tea
1 1/2 cups of uncooked jasmine rice (I used basmati as my pantry is sorely lacking of late)
1 can coconut cream
1/3 cup white sugar

extra:
200ml cream
vanilla
extra water

I used a double saucepan for the entire pudding process, excepting the syrup, because I was feeling lazy, it may work better for others to alternate between a few.

In a double saucepan, steep the tea in the boiling water for at least 5 minutes (I went about ten and wished i'd left it longer, as I really wanted to draw out the flavour of the tea). Same as my Chai process, I strained this through a standard sieve into a pouring jug then strained this through a fine sieve back into the saucepan.

Get the water at a high simmer in the double saucepan by adding a good teaspoon of salt. This raises the boiling point of the water generating greater heat. Add the rice and cook until all the water in absorbed.
Shake the can of coconut cream to mix the contents together. Add it all at once to the rice and stir to combine. Let this absorb into the rice, stirring occasionally, for about half an hour.

I love a really creamy rice pudding, generally which I achieve with copious amounts of milk. I didn't really feel like spending a great deal of time at the stove and so I grabbed a long life carton of cream from the fridge. I added a little milk, about two thirds of a cup, and about half a teaspoon of vanilla essence.
I added about half a cup of this to the pudding.

Turn off the heat and let the pudding sit.

I took a good third of a cup of the used jasime green tea mix and steeped in a 1 1/2 - 2 cups of boiling water for about half an hour while the pudding was cooking. I put this into a small saucepan and boiled for 5 minutes or so. I strained the tea leaves out then returned it to the pot with about half a cup of sugar. I put this on a high heat, stirring infrequently until sugar is dissolved and beginning to thicken.





Serve hot or cold in small bowls with a little of the cream mix and a little of the syrup.
When cold the flavour of the tea should be more pronounced.



Enjoy =)