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RICE (a la Soeur)
Wash half a pound of rice in two or three waters. Place it in a large saucepan with plenty of salted water, and boil quickly till tender, and in order to ascertain when this point is reached try the grains occasionally with the finger and thumb. Pour off the water, and shake the saucepan over the fire till the rice is dry. Add a slice of fresh butter, and a little grated nutmeg, pepper, and salt, and when these ingredients are mixed with the rice put in also the white meat of a dried haddock torn into flakes with two forks, and the whites of three hard-boiled eggs chopped small. Pile this mixture on a hot dish, sprinkle over the top the yolks of the eggs, which have been rubbed through a wire sieve and mixed with an equal quantity of grated Parmesan, and put the dish in the oven for a few minutes till the surface is lightly browned. Serve very hot. Time to boil the rice, ten minutes or more. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian breakfast or supper dish in the kedgeree family, dressed up with Parmesan and a browned top. The one thing to settle before you start is the fish.
- The dried haddock"Dried haddock" here means salt-dried or cold-smoked haddock — finnan haddie or its equivalent — which is not ready to eat and will not be cooked through by a few minutes in the oven. Poach it in milk or water until it flakes (8-10 minutes for a fillet), then flake and fold it into the rice. Hot-smoked haddock, already cooked, can go in as written; the bright yellow dyed fillets sold as "smoked haddock" in some markets are usually cold-smoked and need cooking.
- QuantitiesHalf a pound of rice is about 1 1/8 cups uncooked, which is right for the stated five or six servings. A "slice of fresh butter" means unsalted butter cut from the block — 1 to 2 oz is the sense of it. Reckon on 3/4 to 1 lb of fish before flaking.
- Boiling timeTen minutes suits a long-grain rice boiled loose in plenty of salted water, pasta-style, which is exactly the method described. Basmati will be done in 10-12 minutes; start testing at eight. The finger-and-thumb test still works — the grain should yield with no hard core.
- Drying the riceShaking the drained pan over the heat is the step that keeps the dish from turning to paste. Give it a minute or two over low heat until the steam stops and the grains move freely, then add the butter.
- Oven heatThe original gives none. Use 425F for five to eight minutes, or run it under a broiler for two or three, watching it — the Parmesan and sieved yolk are there to brown, not to bake.
- SeasoningSalt-dried and smoked haddock both carry a great deal of salt. Season the rice lightly, add the fish, then taste before adding any more.
- Cost1s. 4d. is the book's own estimate for the whole dish, which it reckons sufficient for five or six: a shilling and fourpence for six people.
This is close kin to kedgeree, under a French name. The dish descends from khichri, the Indian rice-and-pulse preparation, which Anglo-Indian households reworked in the nineteenth century into rice with flaked smoked fish and hard-boiled egg, eaten at breakfast; versions appear in British cookery books from the mid-century onward. The compilers of Victorian household dictionaries often gave homely dishes a French-sounding title, and "a la Soeur" -- in the manner of the sister, or nun -- appears to be one such tag: its origin is not documented and may have been no more than a house label. The particular Victorian touches are the sieved egg yolk mixed with Parmesan and browned on top, and the dried haddock itself: cured haddock travelled and kept, which is why it turns up in inland recipes at a cost of a few pence.