Restaino's Rice Pudding
- Tracy Scheckel
- Feb 5
- 3 min read
Back in late October when I started posting cookie recipes, you might remember a comment about me having three friends named Debbie who are all great cooks. This is from the third of my amazing cook friends named Debbie.
Rice pudding conjures some vivid childhood memories. When I was in grade school, back when kids were allowed to move freely about the neighborhood, there was a deli, Costa's, about 3 long blocks from my house. My younger sister LOVED rice pudding and was pretty picky about food otherwise, so we took many walks down to Costa's to satisfy her crave. I feel like we paid something like 35 cents for a pint in one of those white Chinese food take-out containers. Back then my favorite treat was their garlic pickles right from the barrel, but I was no stranger to their delicious rice putting once my pickle was gone.
After I wrote the previous paragraph, I decided I wanted to include a photo of Costa's deli in the post, so I reached out to the members of the Vintage Lyndhurst (NJ) group on Facebook to see if anyone could provide a photo. We all took a nice walk down memory lane about the Costa family and until one of the members, Debbi Guastella, messaged me, I was coming up empty. Thanks Debbi for connecting me to Christine (Costa) Delaney who shared photos of her mom's actual written recipe and the closest thing she had to a photo of the store! Such a treasure! In reviewing the recipe, it's clearly for one of those giant deli trays full of rice pudding as it calls for almost 1.5 pounds of rice. The single batch of the recipe I'm sharing calls for a cup. I may try to reduce Mrs.Costa's recipe to a more manageable yield, or maybe I'll host a rice pudding party and cook the full recipe. I'll keep you all posted on that!
Back to this Rice Pudding Recipe.....
Until l tasted (Debbie) Restaino's rice pudding, nothing even came close to Mrs. Costa's. I can honestly say that this recipe is as delicious to me as Mrs. Costa's was when I was a kid.
I can't explain why, but in my mind, this is another Superbowl menu food so I want to share in time for you to make some if the spirit moves you.
THE RECIPE:
1 gal whole milk
2c white rice (Deb only uses Carolina)
1/2c water
3c sugar
4t vanilla
Cinnamon
Combine milk rice and water in large pot and boil stirring often until rice is soft. When rice is soft add the sugar and vanilla and stir constantly until the sugar is all dissolved and the pudding thickens and there’s little to no liquid left. Try not to let it stick to the pan. Transfer the pudding to a bowl or pan to serve from and sprinkle with the cinnamon. The pudding will set up even further when it cools. Once cool sprinkle with more cinnamon and serve chilled.
If for some reason the liquid is gone and the rice isn’t soft yet, it’s OK to add more water. That happens sometimes and I have no idea why.
This makes a double batch that is supposed to serve 12. In my opinion, if you're going to stand and stir constantly (and stirring constantly is not a suggestion but a necessity), you might as well make it worth your while. PLUS, it will disappear really fast. I recall a couple of my kids eating it for breakfast with the argument that 'it's all the stuff you'd have in a bowl of rice crispies, but better.' No real arguing with that......
The image is a single batch I made just to have the photos. It took 25 minutes until the rice (jasmine) was soft, then another 35 or so minutes until it was ready to transfer to the dish
ONE MORE NOTE: While I tend to play around with other peoples' recipes, this one is pretty sacred, but truth be told, I have used maple sugar instead of white in the recipe and, on occasion, have sprinkled maple sugar instead of the cinnamon. Being in Maine, it's something I had to try. It's good, but it's not the same as Debbie's original version.
