Spice Roasted Fruit and Sweet Rice

Inspiration for this post?  Lot of leftover fruits that begged for a clear up and a lot of whim like most of my other recipes.   I recently read about a spiced tropical fruit recipe in a book somewhere and tried a similar version with the left over half fruits that I had.   In fact it is a back to back posting of fruit related recipes.  A day earlier I had made a fruit salad and then comes this Spice Roasted Fruit with Sweet Rice.

 

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup short grained rice (any rice will work)
• 1 cup milk
• few strands of saffron
• Crushed Cardamom pods
• Cinnamon stick
• 1 nutmeg, grated
• 3 Tbsp butter
• 1 Apple, cored and cubed
• 1 cup Pineapple cubes
• 2 peaches, sliced
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• Few pistachios, chopped

Recipe:

• Preheat the oven to 400 F.
• Place the fruit in an ovenproof dish.
• In a saucepan, place the butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom pods and sugar and heat gently stirring until melted.
• Pour the mixture over the fruit.
• Roast in the oven till the fruit is browned (20 min in my case).
• For sweet rice: heat milk with saffron and cardamom till it simmers.  Turn down the heat. In another pot, melt butter and lightly saute the rice for about a minute or two.  You can see a translucent sheen on the rice grains.  At this stage, add lemon rind.  Slowly add milk to the pot, a ladle at a time, till all the rice is cooked. (alternatively, you can add all the ingredients and cook till rice is done).
• Divide the roasted fruit into serving dishes and spoon over the rice.  Top off with some more fruit and garnish with  pistachio.

Note: If you do not want to use rice, you can completely let go off the step using the rice and serve the fruit with some cream instead.   The flavor comes from the fruit not the rice.