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Casserole of Rice, with Eggs
Prepare the rice as in the preceding recipe. When it has been worked into a stiff paste, line a well-oiled mould with it; a piece of bread may be put inside, shaped prperly, to hold it up, but care must be taken to leave a compact wall all round. When baked, remove the bread, put in the mince or fricassee, and cover the top with poached eggs. Serve very hot. Time, three-quarters of an hour to boil the rice. Probable cost, 1s., exclusive of the mixture. Sufficient for six persons.
A moulded rice case baked until firm, then filled and topped with poached eggs. The instructions assume the preceding recipe in the book, so the important work happens before this page begins.
- "Casserole" here is a crust, not a potIn late Victorian cookery a casserole of rice means a shell or case of rice standing on its own, filled at the last moment. Nothing about the modern covered baking dish applies.
- The rice pasteThe preceding recipe is not reproduced here; all this page tells us is that the rice is boiled for three-quarters of an hour and worked into a stiff paste. That implies rice cooked well past tenderness and drained hard before beating. Use a starchy medium-grain rice; long-grain parboiled rice will never break down into something that holds a wall.
- The bread supportThe shaped loaf inside is a Victorian blind-baking weight. A ball of foil or a parchment-lined mould filled with dried beans does the same job; the point is to keep the wall from slumping inward before it sets.
- Mould preparationOil generously and dust with fine dry breadcrumbs. Rice paste sticks, and a shell that tears on turning out cannot be repaired.
- Have the filling ready and hotThe mince or fricassee goes in after baking and gets no further cooking, so it must already be at serving temperature. Poach the eggs while the case rests, and assemble at the table's edge rather than in advance.
- Cost and yield"Probable cost, 1s., exclusive of the mixture" prices only the rice shell; the filling is costed separately and is not accounted for here. It serves six as written, so the mould must be a large one, though no size is given.
The rice case was treated as a technique rather than a fixed dish, like a pastry vol-au-vent or a bordure, to be filled with whatever the larder held. The idea follows French practice, where a rice casserole served as a cheap edible container for a ragout or fricassee, and its appeal to a Victorian household was economy: yesterday's mince, reheated inside a shell of boiled rice and crowned with eggs, arrived at the table looking like a course in its own right. The reliance on a shaped piece of bread as an internal support is a reminder that moulds and baking weights were improvised from whatever was stale in the bread crock.