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Rice a la Maigre
4 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1 grated shallot 1/2 cupful boiled rice 4 chopped hard-cooked eggs 1 tablespoonful white sauce 1 raw egg 1 cupful thick tomato sauce Salt, pepper, and paprika to taste 3 baked tomatoes 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley Fry shallot in Crisco, then add rice, two of the hard-cooked eggs, white sauce, raw yolk of egg, and seasonings. Stir over fire till very hot, then turn out on to hot dish; pour over tomato sauce, sprinkle with parsley and garnish with remainder of eggs, and baked tomatoes.
A meatless supper dish from one of the Crisco promotional cookbooks, built to use up cold boiled rice and hard-cooked eggs. It comes together in about ten minutes once the components are ready, so have the tomato sauce hot and the baked tomatoes done before you start.
- CriscoFour tablespoonfuls is 1/4 cup. The book exists to sell hydrogenated shortening; butter or olive oil gives a better result in a dish this plain, and the same quantity works directly.
- "A la maigre"French kitchen shorthand for a lean or fast-day dish, meaning no meat and no meat stock. If you substitute anything for the white sauce, keep it dairy- or vegetable-based to stay in the spirit of it.
- The white sauceOne tablespoonful is a binder, not a sauce component — it should be a thick béchamel, stiff enough to hold its shape on the spoon. A thin sauce will slacken the rice into porridge.
- The raw eggThe ingredient list says one raw egg but the method uses only the yolk. Use the yolk, off the heat or over low heat, and stir constantly: the point is to bind and enrich, and a yolk added to a very hot pan will scramble in seconds.
- Grated shallotGrating a shallot on a box grater is messy; mince it fine instead. Cook it gently until translucent rather than browned, which takes two or three minutes.
- Baked tomatoesNo instructions are given. Halve three small firm tomatoes, season, and bake cut side up at 375F for 20 to 25 minutes until soft but still holding together.
- Assembly orderEverything must be hot at the same moment — the rice mixture, the cupful of tomato sauce, the dish itself. This is a preparation with no residual heat to fall back on, and it turns lukewarm and pasty within minutes of plating.
- YieldThree servings as a light main course, judging by the three baked tomatoes; two if it is the centre of the meal.
A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil for Procter and Gamble to promote Crisco, which reached the market in 1911, and most of its recipes call for the new shortening. The dish itself is older than the book: maigre dishes were the standard repertoire for Fridays, Lent and the ember days, and a household cook needed a stock of them that used rice, eggs, cheese and vegetables instead of meat or meat broth. The company also marketed Crisco as suitable for kosher kitchens, because it belonged to neither meat nor dairy.