Whole grain “risengrynsgrøt” (Rice Porridge)

At some point during the Christmas holidays, most Norwegians eat “risengrynsgrøt” or “risgrøt”. Most people have it for dinner on December 23rd and then eat the leftovers cold with a berry sauce for dessert on Christmas Eve. When eaten cold, it’s called “riskrem”. It’s basically a rice pudding with white rice, milk, vanilla and then sugar, cinnamon and butter on top. First of all, it’s not vegan and it’s over all very low in nutrients. But it is incredibly delicious, so I decided to make my own version of it using brown rice and rice milk, and added some pear, almond butter and cinnamon to serve. Frankly, it is one of my absolute favourite breakfasts, so I ate it for breakfast every day last week. Of course, you can also eat it for lunch, dinner or a snack. Without further ado – let’s get to the recipe! Oh and by the way, this dish is also what we leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve (don’t you feel priviliged that you can eat the same food as the Norwegian Santa?)

Ingredients (for small portion, I usually double it so that there will be something left after my brother has payed the fridge a visit during the night)

1 cup (2,5 dL) brown rice

1 L unsweetened rice milk (it’s fairly sweet as it is)

a pinch of vanilla powder

your favourite toppings – I like 1/2 a pear, 1 tbsp of almond butter and a drizzle of cinnamon on top

Firstly, it’s rather important that you remember to soak the rice in advance, preferably over night. This speeds up the cooking process, so that it only takes about one hour instead of two. So if you don’t have too much time, you should do this. Frankly, if you don’t have too much time, you shouldn’t make this recipe, but whatever. Also, soaking the rice over night means you’ll have to spend less energy cooking it. So whether you care about the environment or not, soaking is a good idea.

Before adding the rice to a pot, rinse the rice and drain it in the sink to remove the weird, earthy, natural rice flavour. Next, add it to the pot with the rice milk and vanilla powder, and bring to a boil. After it’s boiled, turn down the heat down to medium-low heat and stir every once in a while to prevent burning. Now, it should cook for about 40 minutes, or until it resembles the picture below.

Once the grøt is done, serve it with whatever you like. For Christmas, we eat it with sugar, cinnamon and a little piece of butter on top. I prefer almond butter and pear instead of butter and sugar, but you can eat it however you’d like. Here are some pictures of the finished product (I was not sponsored by Barenreiter, I just thought the colour of the notes went really well with the pear:))

Have a nice week and I’ll write to you soon! Oh, and I hope you enjoy this recipe:)