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GATEAU DE RIZ (French Rice Pudding)
Put four ounces of rice into a saucepan, with a quart of new milk, two table-spoonfuls of sugar, and the rind of half a lemon. Simmer gently until the rice is tender and the milk absorbed. Let it cool, then mix with it the well-beaten yolks of six large eggs. Pour a little clarified butter into a copper cake-mould, and turn it round on an incline until the butter has coated every part of it and is firm. Sprinkle some finely-grated bread-crumbs in the mould, and shake it well, so that they may cover the surface evenly. Beat the whites of the eggs to a firm froth, and mix them with the rice, then put it very gently into the mould, so as not to displace the crumbs, and bake in a moderate over for one hour. The pudding should turn out firm and brown, looking like a cake. Probable cost, 1s. 2d. Sufficient for a good-sized mould.
A baked rice soufflé-pudding in a lined mould, meant to be turned out and sliced like a cake. Two things decide whether it succeeds: the crumb lining and how gently the whites go in.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe whites are the only lift in the dish, and the rice base is heavy and sticky. Loosen it first with a spoonful of the beaten whites, then fold in the rest in two or three additions; if you beat it smooth the gateau bakes dense and will not turn out cleanly.
- Oven temperature"A moderate oven" (printed here as "moderate over") is roughly 325-350F/165-175C. The recipe's hour suits a mould of this size; the pudding is done when it is browned, risen and just firm at the centre.
- MeasuresAn imperial quart is 40 fl oz, roughly 4 3/4 US cups. Four ounces of rice is a scant 2/3 cup of short-grain — pudding rice or Arborio — not long grain, which will not go creamy.
- New milk"New milk" means fresh whole milk straight from the dairy, unskimmed. Ordinary whole milk is the substitute; skimmed milk gives a thin, chalky base.
- The mouldA copper cake-mould can be any charlotte mould, plain metal pudding basin or straight-sided cake tin of about 1.5 to 2 quarts. Brush it with clarified butter and chill it briefly so the butter sets before the crumbs go in — that is what turning it round on an incline "until the butter has coated every part of it and is firm" is asking for, and it is why the crumbs stay put when the rice is spooned in.
- CrumbsUse dry, finely grated crumbs from stale bread, not soft fresh ones and not commercial panko, which is too coarse to give the even brown shell the recipe promises.
- Lemon rindPare the rind in strips with a peeler, avoiding the white pith, and lift it out before the rice cools and the yolks go in. Grated zest can be left in if you prefer a stronger flavour.
- Cool before the yolksThe instruction to let the rice cool is not optional: six yolks stirred into hot rice will scramble. Bring it to warm-but-not-hot, around blood heat, then beat them in.
- Turning out and servingRest the baked gateau five to ten minutes, run a thin knife round the edge and invert onto a warm plate. It serves six to eight. The recipe names no sauce; a fruit compote, thinned apricot jam or a custard sauce all suit it.
Cassell's is a dictionary arranged alphabetically rather than by nationality, so no claim can be made about a run of 'French entries'; but gateau de riz is a good example of what translating the Paris repertoire for middle-class households involved: the same rice, milk, sugar and eggs as a nursery rice pudding, but set in a buttered and crumbed mould so it can be unmoulded whole and carried to table as a sweet entremets rather than spooned from a dish. The buttered-and-crumbed lining is the standard chemiser technique used for charlottes and timbales, and the separated eggs — yolks beaten into the base, whites folded in last — follow soufflé practice. The costing of 1s. 2d. is characteristic of the book, which gives a probable cost for most of its recipes so a housekeeper could judge a dish against the week's budget.