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RICE (a la Trinidad)
Boil together four ounces of rice and a pint and a half of milk; sweeten to taste and add two ounces of grated cocoa-nut, fresh or dried. Stir in a gill of cream, then pour the mixture into a plain border mould, and set on ice to stiffen. Turn out when set, and garnish the top of the border with claret jelly (see WINE JELLY, CLARET). This may either be chopped or put into tiny fancy moulds. Fill the centre with whipped cream flavoured with vanilla and coloured pink with a few drops of cochineal. On the top sprinkle a little more cocoa-nut with a pinch of chopped pistachios. Garnish the base with pink and green candied fruits. Probable cost, 1s. 9d.
A moulded rice pudding dressed as a dinner-party sweet: a coconut rice border, a wine jelly garnish and a pink cream centre. The cooking is trivial; the setting and the assembly are where it succeeds or fails.
- The measuresAn imperial pint and a half is 30 imperial fl oz, about 850 ml, or roughly 3.6 US cups. A gill is 5 imperial fl oz, about two-thirds of a US cup. Four ounces of rice is a scant two-thirds cup of raw short-grain.
- The hinge is the consistencyThere is no gelatine in the rice itself, so it sets only on starch. Cook it slowly, uncovered at a bare simmer, until the grains have broken down and the mixture is thick enough to hold a spoon-track before the cream goes in. A loose, milky pudding will collapse the moment it is turned out.
- Which riceUse a round or short-grain pudding rice, not long-grain or basmati. The recipe depends on released starch, and a non-sticky rice will not bind the border.
- Coconut"Cocoa-nut" here is coconut, not cocoa. Dried means unsweetened desiccated coconut; today's sweetened flaked coconut will throw the sugar out, so reduce the added sugar if that is all you have.
- The mouldA plain border mould is a ring mould with smooth sides. Rinse it with cold water and leave it wet rather than greasing it, then chill several hours until firmly set. Dip the base in warm water for a few seconds to release.
- CochinealCochineal is carmine, still sold as a food colour (E120, from scale insects). Any pink food colouring does the same job; a spoonful of raspberry or redcurrant purée gives colour and flavour together.
- Claret jellyThe cross-reference is to a separately made red wine jelly, set with gelatine or isinglass and firmly chilled before it is chopped or turned out of small moulds. Set it stiffer than you would for eating alone so the chopped pieces keep their edges against the cold cream.
- YieldServes four to six as a dessert. Assemble no more than an hour before serving: the whipped cream centre slackens and the jelly begins to weep against the rice.
Cassell's is full of dishes named "a la" somewhere with only a token connection to the place, and this looks like one: a plain English moulded rice pudding claimed for Trinidad on the strength of its coconut. Desiccated and dried coconut was becoming available to British grocers over the later nineteenth century, shipped from Ceylon and the West Indies, and it turned up in cakes, biscuits and puddings, though the precise chronology of its spread is hard to pin down. The rest of the construction is standard late-Victorian pastry-room practice: a border mould filled with flavoured whipped cream, chopped wine jelly for glitter, cochineal for pink, pistachios and candied fruits for the green and the gloss. The "probable cost, 1s. 9d." that closes the entry is a house feature of the Dictionary.