Risengrød – Sweet Rice Porridge with Cinnamon-sugar

Every year for Christmas in Ayoe’s family Risengrød is served the night before Christmas (Dec. 23rd in Denmark) with cinnamon-sugar and a lump of butter that just melts in the hot porridge. Uumm!

The porridge has been a tradition in Danish Christmas for many years since the beginning of the 1900’s and it has also developed into a dessert dish using the leftover rice porridge, which is called Risalamande. (see picture below).

See the recipe here!

To make the rice porridge you only need a few simple ingredients and relatively short actual cooking time.

Ingredients:
Serves 4-6

360g white round rice (pudding rice)
2 liters milk, use whichever one is your favourite, whole, skim etc.
2-3 dl water
1 teaspoon fine salt
1 cinnamon stick, optional
1/2 liter milk

Directions:

In a large pot with thick bottom, bring the rice and water to a boil. Let it cook for a few minutes till the water is almost gone. Add the milk and bring to a boil while stirring frequently to prevent burning.
Add the cinnamon stick, if using, and the salt. Mix together and let boil for 5-10 minutes while constantly stirring, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pot. Turn off the heat and now comes the easy part 🙂

In your bed, yes you read that right!! In your bed, you put two towels spread out on your blanket, then place a coaster on top of the towels and place the pot with the lid on top. You then cover the pot with the first towel, then wrap it in the second towel and finally the bed blanket. This will keep the rice porridge cooking while you relax.

Now you wait for 3-4 hours.

Unwrap the pot and take a nap in the warm bed…..
Oh wait…

Then you bring the pot back in the kitchen and add the remaining 1/2 liter milk. Bring the porridge back to a boil and cook for 5-10 minutes. Add more salt if you feel it needs it.

Now you should have a creamy and smooth porridge, ready to serve.

For the toppings we use a teaspoon or so of butter per person and sprinkle with a mix of caster sugar and cinnamon. We do approximately 50/50 sugar to cinnamon, but that is a taste question, so create your own, and you can even mix other spices in there too if you feel adventurous, such as cloves, nutmeg and cardamon.

Serve and enjoy!