JERSEY MILK RICE PUDDING WITH LEMON VERBENA

Prep time: 15 minutes, plus cooling time Cook time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Serves 4-6

From a couple of tiny cuttings the lemon verbena in my garden has become a huge, uncontrollable bush, so I’ve been making good use of it over the past couple of years. I tie it in bunches and dry it to use through autumn and winter, to make tea, jellies and other infusions like this. I even add it fresh to a fragrant wild herb salad with ox-eye daisy, plantain, dandelion, wild chervil and pennywort. For this dessert I’ve used blackberries as a garnish as the flavours work perfectly; use defrosted frozen ones if you don’t have fresh.

INGREDIENTS For the rice pudding

– 100g lemon verbena, stalks and all – 1 litre Jersey milk, or

as needed

– 80g caster sugar – 100g good-quality short-grain pudding rice

– 250ml thick Jersey

cream

– seasonal fruit, to

garnish

For the syrup

– 80g caster sugar

– 20 lemon verbena

sprigs

– 1 tsp cornflour, diluted

in a little water

METHOD

Put half the lemon verbena in a heavybased pan with the milk and sugar, and bring to the boil. Simmer very gently for 15 minutes to infuse the milk.

Remove the verbena with a slotted spoon then add the rice to the pan. Simmer very gently for about 20 minutes, stirring regularly, then add the rest of the fresh lemon verbena and continue simmering very gently for another 20 minutes, until the rice is tender. This is like a double infusion that will give the pudding a more intense verbena flavour. Add a little more milk during cooking if the rice is getting dry.

Fish out as much of the lemon verbena as you can (it doesn’t matter if the odd leaf is left in). Leave to cool for 10 minutes, stirring every so often, then stir in the cream and allow to cool completely. You can refrigerate the rice pudding or serve it at room temperature; if you do chill it you may need to loosen it a little with milk if it turns too solid.

Meanwhile, make the syrup: put the sugar and lemon verbena in a pan with 200ml water, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 2-3 minutes then stir in the cornflour mixture. Simmer for another minute then blend the mixture in a liquidiser until smooth. Leave to cool.

Serve the rice pudding with the syrup, scattered with seasonal fruit.