Add rice and water to a large, heavy saucepan, stir and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer and gently simmer, stirring now and then at first, and almost continuously toward the end. Cook until most of the liquid is absorbed and mixture resembles cream of wheat.

Mix milk, eggs, condensed milk, and salt in a bowl, whisking well. Gradually add to the rice mixture, slowly at first, whisking well to avoid lumps. Make sure to get into the corners of the pan. Bring to a boil and turn down to a good simmer, stirring often. Cook for several minutes, until the back of a spoon leaves a distinct line when a finger is drawn across it and any pieces of rice are soft. Be prepared to add more liquid, milk or water if the pudding has thickened but the rice is not yet soft.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Add raisins, if desired, when pudding is finished.

Serve warm or chilled.

Notes:

• You may need to add more milk to reach your desired thickness; the mixture thickens as it sits and as it cools.
• The rice in this recipe is leftover from a Horchata recipe and has been presoaked for about 12 hours. This affects the moisture content of the rice.
• I’ve only made this recipe using the leftover rice, but a weighing before and after cooking indicated the initial 1 1/3 cups of rice (about 9 ounces) had absorbed about 6 ounces of water in its overnight soaking. The measurement was still about 1 1/3 cups but the weight had increased to about 15 ounces.

Cream of Rice:

If you don’t wish to cook the full pudding, but wish, instead, to make a simple pudding for breakfast or dessert, start off with the rice and instead of using water, use milk. You’ll likely need about 3 cups of milk for this amount of rice. Simply cook until almost all of the liquid is absorbed, stirring constantly toward the end of the cooking process. Taste the mixture, and if the rice is not yet cooked through, add a bit more milk and cook for a little longer. Add sugar or condensed milk as desired. Serve warm or cold.