Semolina Pudding with Jam

It's raining. The kind of slow, settled rain that fogs the kitchen windows by half past five and turns the whole evening inward. This is semolina pudding weather. Nothing else quite answers it.

Semolina gets a bad press. Most people of a certain age remember it from school dinners: grey, gluey, served with a reluctant plop and a sad teaspoon of something red. That is not this. Made properly, with whole milk and a little patience, semolina turns into something altogether different. Thick, creamy, softly sweet, with a clean vanilla warmth running through it. The jam stirred through at the end does half the work. Raspberry for preference, because the sharpness cuts through all that richness, but whatever you have in the cupboard will earn its keep.

It takes fifteen minutes. You need a heavy pan, a whisk for the first minute, and then a wooden spoon and the willingness to stand still at the hob. That's it. Trust your nose. When the kitchen starts to smell like warm milk and vanilla, you're nearly there.

I wrote it down in the notebook last winter: 'semolina, raspberry jam, Tuesday, the rain.' That was the whole entry. We're only making dinner, or pudding in this case, but there are few better feelings than putting a warm bowl of something quiet in front of someone on a cold evening and watching their shoulders drop half an inch. Nursery food. And none the worse for that.