Before the World War II, rice in Denmark was a very expensive and imported ingredient and normal people could not imagine to have a completely rice-based meal.

After the war, rice, like every kind of ingredient by now, became accessible thanks to the swiftly increase in the importation traffic. Now this rice porridge, called Risengrød in Denmark, is served on a very special occasion, Christmas Eve, as a symbolic offer to Nisse, a beneficent but touchy household spirit.

During a lovely tour of Tivoli, the popular amusement park in the heart of Copenhagen, I saw quite a few kids eating from a warm bowl of white rice pudding. It was not breakfast for them, like this dish you see here was meant to be for me. I could see a spark in their eyes, just like when a kid receives a toy or a deeply desired sweet. I could not help but think that an Italian child would find the idea of rice as a dessert at least… uhm… strange, too simple to be delectable. Even to my eyes, this dish looks like a post-war dish, which concurs – as you might deduce from my love for peasant cuisine and simple food – to make it even more appealing .

I’m not particularly happy with the photos I took of this recipe. Yeah, there’s no WOW factor in here. Rice, you know. However, the dish is visible, maybe you can even feel its light creaminess, its delicate taste of dense milk and soft consistency of a not too sweet rice. If you can appreciate at least one of these “properties”, then, yeah, I’ll get my mind happily crowded with a few WOW :).

Print Recipe Scandi Rice Pudding Ingredients ¾ cup 150g arborio rice

1 tbsp butter

2 cups 500ml almond milk

4 Tablespoons sugar I used coconut sugar

1 cup blueberries Instructions For the rice pudding, place 2 cups (500ml) of milk into a large saucepan and bring it to the boil. Add the rice, 1 tablespoon of sugar and butter and cook,on a very low heat, for about 20 minutes or until the rise has absorbed the milk, until thick, creamy. Be sure to stir it often.

Meantime the rice is cooking, wash the blueberries. Place 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 cup of water into a medium saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the blueberries and cook for 1 minute. Bring the syrup back to the boil continuously stirring for about 4 minutes to thicken it, and then set aside.

When the rice is ready, serve it on a platter with the blueberries on top.