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Rice, Boiled
Take a pound of good rice, and wash it well in two separate waters. When the water is boiling throw in the rice. When the rice is three-parts done, drain the water from it in a sieve. Butter the inside of a stewpan, put the rice into it, close the lid tightly, and put the pan in a warm oven, or by the side of the fire, until the rice is perfectly tender. Prepared thus every grain will be distinct and beautifully white. Serve with curry or with any other adjunct that may be preferred.
A two-stage method — parboil in abundant water, then finish by dry steam — that still produces the best separate-grained rice for curry. A few of the original's cues need translating.
- The hinge: pull it early"Three-parts done" means the grain still has a firm core. For modern long-grain rice that is likely around 5 to 6 minutes in the boiling water, though timings vary by rice and pan, so test a grain rather than trust the clock. The oven stage does the rest, and rice drained at fully cooked risks ending up mushy.
- Plenty of water, and salt itThe recipe implies a pan of freely boiling water but gives no quantity; a modern cook would use at least 3 quarts for the pound of rice. No salt is called for in the original, but salting the water is the only chance the grains get to be seasoned from within.
- "A warm oven"The book gives no temperature; a warm oven or the side of the fire means gentle heat, perhaps 250-275F in modern terms. The pan is not cooking the rice so much as holding it while trapped steam finishes the starch. Fifteen to twenty minutes should be enough.
- Sealing the stewpanFew modern lids are tight. Lay a round of parchment or a folded tea towel directly on the rice under the lid, or crimp foil over the rim, so the steam stays in and condensation does not drip back onto the grains.
- Washing in "two separate waters"Rice of the period was sold polished and could arrive dusty, so two changes of water were a sensible minimum; coatings of talc and glucose are documented on commercially polished rice. With modern packaged rice, two rinses until the water runs nearly clear are still worth it for surface starch. Skip it for enriched American rice, where rinsing removes the added vitamins.
- Which riceCassell's readers would most likely have used Patna, a long, hard grain, though the recipe does not say. Any long-grain or basmati behaves the same way. Short-grain, arborio and pudding rice will not give distinct grains by this method, since their surface starch is the whole point of them.
- ButterThe buttered pan is there to stop sticking and to gloss the grains, not to fry them. A tablespoon smeared over the base and sides is enough; more makes the rice greasy rather than "beautifully white".
- YieldA pound of dry rice is about 2 1/4 cups and swells to roughly 6 to 7 cups cooked — eight generous servings alongside a curry.
Plain boiled rice was the standard accompaniment to the curries that had become fixtures of the late-Victorian British table, and getting it dry and separate was treated as a test of a cook. The insistence on "every grain distinct and beautifully white" reflects an Anglo-Indian ideal, and the parboil-then-steam sequence is essentially a hob-and-oven version of the Indian method of draining rice and letting it finish in its own heat. The rice itself would almost certainly have been Patna, shipped from Bengal and sold loose by the pound; it was routinely polished for appearance, which is why nineteenth-century books are so emphatic about washing it in more than one water.