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Rice and Tomatoes
Take half a dozen ripe tomatoes, squeeze out the pips, and put them in a tin in the oven, with a little butter, to bake. Baste them occasionally with a little butter. In the meantime boil half a pound of rice in a little stock or water, adding no more than the rice is able to absorb. This will take about as long as the tomatoes will take to bake. Remove the tomatoes from the tin and pour all the liquid and butter on to the rice, stirring it well up and adding salt and pepper to taste. Put this on a dish, and serve the tomatoes on the rice with the red unbroken side uppermost. Probable cost, 1s.
A straightforward pilaf-and-baked-tomato dish that depends almost entirely on the absorption method for the rice. Two details in the original need translating: the oven heat, which is never stated, and the amount of liquid, which is left to the cook's judgement.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Tomatoes baked with butter until soft but still holding their shape want a moderate oven, 350F, for roughly 25-35 minutes depending on size.
- "A tin"A shallow metal baking tin or roasting tin, not a covered dish. Left uncovered, the tomato juices reduce as they bake, and the recipe has you pour that liquid and butter over the rice.
- Rice quantity and liquidHalf a pound is roughly 1 1/4 cups of raw long-grain rice. "No more than the rice is able to absorb" means roughly 1.75 to 2 cups of stock; add it all at once, cover, and leave it alone once it comes to a simmer.
- Timing the two togetherThe claim that the rice and tomatoes take the same time is optimistic. Absorption-method rice needs 15-18 minutes plus 5 minutes standing; start the tomatoes first and hold them in the warm tin while the rice finishes.
- Squeezing out the pipsHalve the tomatoes crosswise and scoop the seeds and watery gel, or cut a lid and hollow them. Either way keep them intact enough to sit "red unbroken side uppermost" on the finished rice.
- SeasoningSalt the rice water lightly if using plain water; if using a commercial stock, season only at the end, once the reduced buttery tomato juices have gone in.
- Yield and costServes four as a light supper or side. The "probable cost, 1s." is a Victorian shilling, a habit of Cassell's for household budgeting, and has no useful modern equivalent.
It reads like a lesson in two techniques at once: absorption-cooked rice and dry-baked tomatoes. The tomato became an everyday market vegetable in Britain only in the second half of the nineteenth century, as commercial glasshouse growing made it cheap in summer, and cookery books of the period were still busy telling readers what to do with it beyond ketchup and soup. Boiling rice in exactly the liquid it will take up, rather than in a large pot of water to be drained, is commonly associated with Indian and Middle Eastern practice and is generally said to have reached English cookery books largely through Anglo-Indian households; here it is stated plainly as a rule, with no name attached. The instruction to serve the tomatoes unbroken and red side up suggests that appearance at table mattered.