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Rice Croquettes, Sweet
Wash half a pound of Carolina rice, and throw it into boiling water for five minutes. Drain and dry it, and let it cool. Put it into a goodsized saucepan with the thin rind of half a fresh lemon, half a pound of loaf sugar, a small slice of butter, and three pints of milk. Let it simmer gently until the rice is soft, thick, and dry, then spread it on a dish to cool. Beat the yolks of two eggs briskly. Form the rice into the shape of corks, about an inch and a half long, or into balls, then dip them first into beaten egg, and afterwards into finely-grated bread-crumbs. Lay them in the frying-basket, plunge them into very hot fat, and fry them very quickly until they are brightly browned. Drain them, sprinkle white sugar over them, and serve very hot, piling them on a dish in the form of a pyramid. The flavour of the croquettes may be varied by the addition of five or six pounded bitter almonds, or by the substitution of a pod of vanilla, broken in halves, or a little cocoa-nut, pounded, for the lemon-rind. Both lemon-rind and vanilla should be taken out of the rice when it is left to cool. The croquettes may be enriched also by the introduction of a spoonful of jam or marmalade into the centre of each ball. The jam must be entirely covered with the rice. It should be remembered the unless the rice is boiled till it is quite thick and dry it will be difficult to form it into croquettes. Time to fry, five to seven minutes. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian sweet croquette that depends entirely on cooking the rice down until it is stiff enough to mould. Everything else is technique.
- The hinge: dry the riceThe rice must simmer until it is genuinely thick and dry — stiff enough to hold a fingerprint and pull away from the pan — or the croquettes will slump and burst in the fat. Reducing three pints of milk into half a pound of rice means a long, slow simmer; the recipe gives no time, only the test of thickness. Spread it on a dish and let it cool thoroughly before shaping, as the recipe directs.
- Skip the bitter almond variationTreat the bitter almond variation with care -- Bitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the nuts are crushed and moistened. They are restricted or not sold as food in many countries today, and the dose in a dish like this is hard to control, particularly where children are eating. Use the lemon rind, vanilla or coconut versions, or a drop of commercial almond extract, which carries no cyanide risk.
- Carolina riceA long-grain white rice, not a pudding rice. Any plain long-grain white rice works, and short-grain pudding rice works better still since it releases more starch and sets firmer.
- Loaf sugarCone or block sugar that was cut or crushed before use. Ordinary granulated sugar, weight for weight, is the equivalent. Half a pound is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons — a sweet mixture by design.
- Frying temperature and time"Very hot fat" is not given a figure in the book; in modern terms it probably corresponds to somewhere around 350–375F. The rice is already cooked, so the stated five to seven minutes may be longer than these need; go by the coating, and lift them as soon as the crumb is a bright even brown.
- Two yolks is thin coatingYolks alone give a rich but sparse wash. Beat them with a teaspoon of water or milk to loosen, and press the crumbs on firmly — any bare patch will leak, especially on the jam-filled version.
- YieldFive or six as written, giving roughly 18 to 24 croquettes an inch and a half long. They are best eaten within minutes of draining; reheating turns the coating leathery.
Sweet rice croquettes belong to the large Victorian family of dishes built on riz au lait — rice simmered in sweetened milk — which French cooks shaped, crumbed and fried and English kitchens took up in the second half of the nineteenth century. The name comes from the French croquer, to crunch, and the whole point is the contrast between the fried crust and the soft paste inside. The frying basket the recipe assumes was standard equipment in a well-equipped late-Victorian kitchen, and the instruction to pile the finished croquettes in a pyramid reflects a period taste for height and symmetry in sweet courses.