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Rice and Chicken
Wash half a pound of rice in two or three waters, throw it into boiling water, and let it boil gently for a quarter of an hour. Drain it on a sieve. Truss a plump young chicken for boiling. Put it into a stewpan with the rice, a slice of butter, a pinch of salt, six or eight peppercorns, and a small onion. Pour in as much veal stock or water as will cover the fowl and the rice, cover the saucepan closely, bring the liquor to the boil, then draw the saucepan to the side, and let all simmer very gently until the chicken is done enough. Take it up, and keep it hot. Strain the rice, and let it swell for a minute or two on a sieve before the fire. Strain the gravy, thicken it with a little flour and butter, add a quarter of a pint of cream, and further seasoning if required, then heat it again. Serve the fowl in the centre of a dish, with the rice neatly arranged round it, a little of the sauce poured over it, and the rest in a tureen. Serve immediately. Time to simmer the chicken, half an hour to three-quarters of an hour from the time the stock boils. Probable cost, 5s. or more, according to the price of the chicken. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A one-pot poached fowl with the rice cooked in the same liquor, finished with a cream sauce. The whole thing hinges on the temperature of the liquid: a bare simmer, never a boil.
- Draw the saucepan to the sideOn a coal range this meant sliding the pan off the hottest plate to hold it just below boiling. On a modern hob it is the lowest setting, with the surface barely trembling. A rolling boil will shred the breast and cloud the gravy you are about to turn into sauce.
- Timing for a modern birdHalf an hour to three-quarters was written for a small young fowl of perhaps 2.5-3 lb. A supermarket chicken of 4-5 lb needs closer to an hour to an hour and a quarter at a gentle simmer; go by an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, which should read 165F, rather than by the clock.
- Quantities in old measuresA quarter of a pint of cream is 5 fl oz in imperial measure, or about 140 ml, a shade under two-thirds of a US cup. A "slice of butter" is not a fixed quantity; something in the region of 1 oz is the usual reading. Half a pound of rice is a generous amount for four or five, and a long-grain or Carolina-type rice suits it better than a risotto rice.
- The riceParboiling for fifteen minutes and then finishing it in the poaching liquor works, but rice left in for the whole simmer can collapse. Add it to the pan for only the last 15-18 minutes of the chicken's cooking, or cook it separately in some of the strained stock if you want reliable grains.
- Letting it swell before the fireThis means drying the grains in gentle radiant heat. An uncovered dish in a 200F oven for a few minutes does the same job, and drives off surface moisture so the rice does not go pasty round the bird.
- Veal stockRarely on sale now. A light chicken stock is the practical substitute; avoid a dark or heavily reduced stock, which will overwhelm the cream and give the sauce a brown cast.
- Thickening"A little flour and butter" means either a small roux or butter and flour worked to a paste and stirred in, about a level tablespoon of each. If you make a roux, cook it out for a minute before the liquid goes in, and do not let the finished sauce boil hard once the cream is added.
- Yield and costFour or five servings as written. The 5s. is the probable cost of the finished dish, dominated by the fowl, and tells you only that poultry was then a considered purchase rather than a weekday one.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of English household compendia, and it reads as a demonstration: one bird, one pot, one liquor doing three jobs at once as poaching medium, rice cooking water and sauce base. Boiled fowl with rice was a standing item of nineteenth-century English cookery, often prescribed for invalids and children because the flesh was gently cooked and the sauce mild. The specified veal stock is a marker of period practice: veal bones were the standard neutral gelatinous base of Victorian kitchens, valued precisely because they added body without flavour of their own, a role now largely filled by commercial chicken stock. The costing in shillings, given as a matter of course, reflects a book written for households keeping accounts and a cook expected to justify the fowl.