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Portuguese Fritters
Put half an inch of stick cinnamon and the rind of half a small lemon into a pint of milk. Let the liquid remain a little time till the milk is slightly flavoured, then pour it, without straining it, into a saucepan, and put with it six ounces of best Carolina rice, two ounces of fresh butter, and a little sugar. Let it simmer very gently until the rice is quite tender and has absorbed all the milk. Pour the preparation out, beat it well for two or three minutes, and stir into it the well-beaten yolks of three eggs. When it is a little cool, make it into balls about an inch and a half in diameter, and carefully introduce into the centre of each a small portion of orange marmalade. Brush the balls over with beaten egg, and dip them into finely-grated bread-crumbs. Put them into a wire frying-basket, and plunge them into as much hot fat as will quite cover them. Let them remain until they are lightly browned, drain them carefully, and serve piled on a napkin and covered with sifted sugar. Time to boil the rice, about three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A sweet rice croquette with a marmalade heart, straightforward once the rice is cooked stiff enough to shape. The success of the dish rests almost entirely on how dry and cold the rice paste is before you form the balls.
- The hinge: chill the riceThe hinge: cool the rice -- Warm rice will not hold a ball, and a soft ball may burst in the fat and dump marmalade into it. The recipe asks only that the mixture be 'a little cool' before shaping; spreading it on a tray, covering it and chilling until firm makes the balls much easier to handle.
- Carolina riceNineteenth-century Carolina rice was a prized long-grain white rice from the American South; US production collapsed in the early twentieth century, though the name lingered in Britain as a general term for long-grain rice. A short-grain pudding rice will give a more cohesive, starchy paste; a modern long-grain may cook up looser.
- QuantitiesSix ounces is about 170 g of rice; a pint here is the imperial pint, 20 fl oz or roughly 570 ml. Two ounces of butter is 55 g. "A little sugar" is unspecified — two tablespoons suits a fritter that is dusted with more sugar at the end.
- Liquid and timeThree-quarters of an hour of very gentle simmering is right for a stiff, dry rice paste rather than a loose pudding. Use the lowest heat and a heavy pan, and add a splash more milk only if the rice is still hard when the liquid has gone.
- Remove the aromaticsThe milk goes into the pan unstrained, so the cinnamon stick and the strip of lemon rind cook with the rice. Fish both out before you beat in the yolks, or someone will bite into bark.
- The yolksThree beaten yolks go in after the rice has been poured out and beaten, and they will thicken and set the mixture as it cools; stir briskly so they do not set in streaks. Residual heat alone will not fully cook them, but the fritters are deep-fried afterwards.
- Frying'As much hot fat as will quite cover them' means deep frying; the recipe gives no temperature, but the usual modern range for this is about 350–360°F (175–180°C). Fry a few at a time so the temperature holds, and take them out when lightly browned — everything inside is already cooked.
- CrumbsFinely grated breadcrumbs meant dry, sieved crumbs from stale bread, not the soft fresh sort. Dry fine crumbs, or panko crushed a little finer, give the even light-brown shell described.
- ServingThe napkin absorbs fat and keeps the fritters from steaming on the dish. Sift the sugar over and serve at once; they go leathery as they cool. Six to seven portions, as stated; the recipe does not say how many balls that makes.
Sweet rice cooked in milk with cinnamon and lemon peel is the backbone of Iberian rice puddings — Portuguese *arroz doce* and Spanish *arroz con leche* both rest on that same trio of flavourings — and the name of this fritter is a nod to that lineage rather than to any single Portuguese original. Turning a stiff sweet rice into balls, stuffing them, crumbing and deep-frying them is a technique often associated with the French kitchen as *croquettes de riz*, and Victorian cookery writers seem to have taken it up, then attached national labels fairly loosely. The costing in pence and the note on how many the dish will serve are characteristic of Cassell's, which was written for households running to a cook and a strict weekly budget, and which expected a made dish to be accounted for in shillings and pence — here 1s. 4d.