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Rice, Casserole Of
Pick the rice well, wash it thoroughly first in lukewarm and next in cold water. Drain it, and throw it into a stewpan of a proper size, that it may swell with ease; moisten with some "pot-top" (fat). The broth must be previously drained through a silk sieve, that the rice may be kept very clean. Mix it with a large quantity of grease--some pieces of fat ham--in order to make the rice more mellow, and a little salt. As the rice must swell very much, use a sufficient quantity of broth to produce that effect. Cook the rice over a very slow fire, and stir frequently that it may not stick. Taste it to ascertain whether it is well seasoned and done enough; then strain it through a colander, and move it well with a wooden spoon. Take off the fat that issues from the rice and pour it into the mould which you select for the casserole; when all the parts of the latter are well covered with the grease, drain it by turning the mould upside down, then put some rice all round the mould; put a piece of soft bread in the middle, and cover it with rice, squeeze it in equally with your spoon, and let it cool. When the rice has become firm, dip the outside of the mould into boiling water. Have a little pate brisee, which frame the size of the mould; turn the mould over the paste; make an opening with a knife in the top, and flatten the paste all round with a spoon; then put it into the oven, which can never be too hot for a casserole, for if the oven is not hot enough the casserole is liable to break; baste with the grease, and when the casserole is become of a fine colour, take it out of the oven; open it gently, then cut the bread into small pieces with a penknife that you may take it out without injuring the casserole; next remove the rice that sticks round, but do not empty it too much, for fear it should not bear or resist the weight of whatever you intend to throw in. You generally put into these casseroles white and brown ragouts, blanquettes, eminces, fricassees of fowls, macaroni, and scallops of fish that have already been sent up to table, etc. etc.
This is not a casserole in the modern sense at all — it is a moulded, baked case of fatted rice, lined and browned so it can be filled at the last moment with a ragout or fricassee. The whole thing hinges on getting the rice greasy enough and cooked soft enough to set into a wall that will not collapse when filled.
- "Casserole" means the vessel and the crustIn nineteenth-century French-derived cookery a casserole of rice is a hollow rice case, the edible equivalent of a vol-au-vent. Nothing is baked in it until it comes out of the oven.
- "Pot-top" fatThe fat skimmed from the top of a stockpot. Substitute clarified beef or chicken fat, or duck fat; butter alone will not set the rice as firmly. The pieces of fat ham are there for both richness and seasoning.
- Silk sieveA fine-woven straining cloth. A double layer of muslin or a fine-mesh conical strainer does the same job — the point is that no specks of stock sediment discolour the rice.
- The rice itselfUse a starchy short- or medium-grain rice, not basmati or long-grain. It must cook well past al dente until the grains break down slightly and bind; the instruction to "move it well with a wooden spoon" after draining probably amounts to working the grains together, though the original does not say so.
- The bread coreThe soft bread in the centre is a former, the equivalent of baking beans. It holds the shape while the case bakes and is dug out afterwards. The original calls for soft bread; cut a crustless piece to fit the mould.
- "Never too hot"Read this as a very hot oven; the recipe names no temperature. The logic is sound: the paste and the outer rice must set fast, and a slack oven lets the case slump and crack before it firms.
- Pâte briséeA plain short paste of flour, butter, a little salt and water — no sugar. It is rolled to the diameter of the mould, laid over the inverted rice, vented with a knife, and bakes into a lid and skin.
- Do not hollow it out too farThe original warning is the practical one. Leave the rice wall thick enough to bear the weight of the filling; the recipe specifies no thickness.
This entry belongs to the grand French repertoire that English cookery books absorbed through the nineteenth century, and the phrasing -- "pot-top," "blanquettes, eminces," the insistence on a silk sieve -- reads as a translation from a French professional manual rather than anything written for a domestic cook. Its real function is disclosed in the last line: the case is a handsome vehicle for "scallops of fish that have already been sent up to table," that is, for yesterday's dinner. Rice cases, borders and croustades all served that end, returning cooked surplus to the table in a form that looked like an ambition rather than an economy.