• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

2 cups diced ripe mango or pineapple

2 cups diced ripe honeydew, cantaloupe, or red papaya

2 cups segmented navel oranges or tangelos (see Segmenting Citrus)

Juice of 1 lime

Honey (optional)

1 recipe Vanilla Fresh Cheese

Mix the fruit in a large salad bowl, pour the lime juice over the top, and toss to coat the fruit evenly. Season to taste with drizzles of honey and toss again. Divide the salad among serving bowls and top each with morsels of vanilla fresh cheese.

RICE PUDDING POPS

serves 6 • TIME: 35 minutes cooking, 30 minutes cooling, 4 hours freezing

Carolina Gold is the name given to an esteemed variety of rice that was brought to Charleston from Madagascar in the late 1600s. The rice was the Lowcountry’s primary cash crop until the early twentieth century, and although these days rice is grown mostly by landowners who want to attract waterfowl, the region’s taste for rice remains. Charleston Receipts, our hometown’s seminal cookbook, contains some truly esoteric rice recipes: for rice breads and muffins, rice croquettes, and even a rice omelet.

These rice pudding popsicles are a cool new take on the warm, soothing classic. They’ve got an intense flavor—thanks to the aromatic jasmine or basmati rice we typically use—and an alluring texture. We often add yellow curry powder (a spice brought to the Lowcountry from Asia in the eighteenth century) or the Indian spice mixture garam masala to add intrigue. Feel free to use a more conventional rice pudding spice such as cinnamon, nutmeg, or ginger.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

½ cup long-grain jasmine or basmati rice

¼ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste

1 quart whole milk

½ cup sugar, plus more to taste

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

½ teaspoon garam masala, curry powder, ground cinnamon, or ground ginger, plus more to taste

1 large egg

1 In a heavy-bottomed 3-quart pot, melt the butter over medium heat, and when it is frothy, add the rice and salt. Cook, stirring and taking care to prevent the butter from browning, until the rice is very fragrant and opaque, about 2 minutes. Add the milk, sugar, vanilla, and garam masala, cover, turn heat to medium-high, and bring to a simmer. When the mixture starts to simmer, turn the heat to low and cook, covered, until the rice is completely tender, about 30 minutes.

2 Beat the egg in a large bowl. Pour the rice mixture in a thin stream into the bowl, whisking constantly to keep the egg from cooking. Season to taste with salt, sugar, and garam masala. Let the mixture cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes.

3 Pour the rice mixture into six 4-ounce popsicle molds, leaving ½ inch at the top of each mold for the custard to expand. Freeze as long as 4 hours.

4 To unmold the popsicles, hold the molds horizontally and run warm tap water briefly over the length of the popsicle molds, until the popsicles release.

VARIATIONS

hot rice pudding For soothing comfort on a chilly day, add an extra ¼ cup rice to the recipe. Just after adding the egg to the mixture, transfer the custard to small ramekins and serve.

cold rice pudding To cool down quickly on a hot day, simply chill the pudding at the end of Step 2 and serve it cold.

rice pudding ice cream After the rice custard has cooled to room temperature (at the end of Step 2), refrigerate it until it is very cold, about 4 hours. Then churn it in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

BLACK WALNUT ICE CREAM

makes about 1½ pints; serves 6 • TIME: 15 minutes cooking, 4 hours refrigeration, 15 to 30 minutes churning, 2 hours freezing

The black walnut is a tree native to North America that produces copious softball-size green fruit that tend to drop in driveways and on lawns in the Midwest and throughout the southern Appalachians. The nuts inside are extremely difficult to crack, but those who persist—or who, like us, have a nut processor do the work for them—are richly rewarded.

Black walnuts have an exotic flavor that is unlike a common walnut, or any other nut really. They’re almost too rich to