Rice Pudding

Simply Mexican by Lourdes Castro

Ingredients:
4 cups water
1/4 cup short-grain rice (such as Arborio)
4 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 cinnamon stick
ground cinnamon

Directions:
1.  Bring water to boil in a saucepan.  Add rice, stir, and lower heat to a simmer.  Cook, uncovered, for 45 minutes.  It will look as if all the rice grains have melted into a big clump, but they have not.  The rice is just overcooked, which is what you want.  Using silicone spatula, begin stirring rice to help the remaining water evaporate and prevent the rice and starch from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Continue until most of the liquid has evaporated (it's impossible to get it completely dry since the starch has gelled and is holding on to some water).  Total cooking time will be about 1 hour.  Turn off heat.
2.  Combine milk, sugar, vanilla, salt and cinnamon stick in a saucepan and bring to boil.
3.  Pour the boiling milk mixture into the rice, stir well, and turn on the heat to medium.  It will seem as if you have added too much milk, but you have not.  Cook the rice, stirring every 5 minutes or so to remove the skin that forms and the starch that builds up along the side of the pan, until the liquid is reduced by half.  This should take about 45 minutes.  The pudding will thicken as it cools, so keep that in mind when judging consistency!
4. Serve rice hot, chilled, or at room temp.  Garnish with ground cinnamon.

Can substitute full-fat coconut milk for some/all of the whole milk.  Low-fat milk will not result in same creamy texture