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Baked Rice and Apples
This is a wholesome invalids' dish. Pare, quarter, and core the apples, and stew them with a little cold water and sugar, in which there is also a little cinnamon and allspice, tied in a little bag for easy removal. Ten minutes should stew the apples. Turn them into a saucer, spread boiled rice over, and cover the whole with white of egg beaten to a froth. If the apples and rice are put together cold, they must be heated through in the oven before putting on the egg. Serve when well browned.
XV. Gruels.
GRUELS are made of corn-meal, oatmeal, rice or barley, generally of corn-meal or oatmeal. Rice gruel is used for relaxed bowels. Gruels are all made by mixing the meal with cold water, properly seasoning and turning into boiling water. When done, say in five minutes, strain, sweeten to taste, flavor and serve. Add wine or brandy if stimulus is necessary. Corn-meal and oatmeal, or other grits are better soaked for some time in cold water before cooking.
An invalid dish from the sick-room chapter, written for a cook who already knows the proportions. Everything here is scalable: figure two apples and about half a cup of cooked rice per serving.
- The hinge: the meringueWhite of egg beaten to a froth is a soft meringue, and the original asks only that it be served "when well browned." No temperature is given; a moderate oven, around 350F for 12-15 minutes, will set and colour it, until the peaks are browned and the surface is dry to the touch.
- "A saucer"A small shallow dish, quite possibly a literal saucer, which was often used for baking single portions. A small gratin dish or ramekin per person serves the same purpose: this is a single portion to be carried to a sickbed.
- Stewing the applesTen minutes is right for tart cooking apples cut in quarters, in barely enough water to keep them from catching. They should hold their shape rather than collapse to sauce; a Bramley or other tart variety will need less sugar than the sweet dessert apples on most supermarket shelves.
- The spice bagA stick of cinnamon and four or five whole allspice berries tied in muslin, or a tea infuser, does the job. The original ties the spice in a bag "for easy removal."
- The ricePlain boiled rice, unsalted or barely salted, cooked soft rather than to a firm grain. Leftover rice works, and the "put together cold" clause allows for it; heat the assembled fruit and rice through in a moderate oven, around 350F for about 15 minutes, before the egg goes on.
- Raw egg whiteA briefly browned soft meringue may not reach a temperature that pasteurises the white. Since this was written for the sick and for children, use pasteurised whites, or bake until the meringue is firm and dry throughout.
- The gruel notes that followThe paragraph on gruels is a separate section that ran on from this page, not part of the dish. Its instruction to add wine or brandy "if stimulus is necessary" belongs to nineteenth-century sick-room practice and has no place in food prepared for an invalid or a child today.
Invalid cookery was a standing chapter in household manuals long before the nineteenth century — it appears in eighteenth-century English books — and remained one well into the twentieth, when nursing the sick happened at home and the cook was expected to produce food that was bland, soft and, in the language of the day, "wholesome" or "nourishing." Rice, apples and egg white were the reliable trio: all three were thought easy on the digestion, and all three were cheap. The claim that rice gruel suits "relaxed bowels" reflects a genuine and long-standing folk use of rice water in cases of diarrhoea, still echoed in oral rehydration practice, though the wine or brandy "if stimulus is necessary" belongs firmly to the era's belief in alcohol as a medicine. Dressing the whole thing with a browned meringue is the small dignity of the dish: the same technique that finished a company pudding, scaled down to one saucer and carried upstairs.