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Rice, Ground, Milk
Boil a table-spoonful of ground rice with a pint and a half of milk, a bit of cinnamon and lemon-peel, a little nutmeg, and sugar to taste, adding the sugar only when nearly done. It should be thick and smooth. Probable cost, 6d.
A thin milk pudding of the invalid-cookery school, closer to a drinkable gruel than to the baked rice puddings of the same book. Two things decide whether it works: how you introduce the rice, and how patiently you cook it.
- Slake the rice firstGround rice tipped into hot milk seizes into lumps that no amount of beating will disperse. Mix it to a smooth cream with a few spoonfuls of the cold milk, then stir that into the rest as it heats.
- Ground rice is rice flourVictorian ground rice was rice milled to a fine, slightly gritty powder. Modern rice flour is the direct equivalent; the coarser Asian-market grind gives a texture nearer the original than superfine white rice flour.
- The measurements are imperialA British pint is 20 fl oz, so a pint and a half is 30 imperial fl oz, roughly 850 ml, or about 3 1/2 US cups. Period tablespoons varied, but ran close to or a little under the modern US one.
- One spoonful will not make it thickA single tablespoon of rice flour to 30 fl oz of milk gives a pourable drink, not the "thick and smooth" result promised, unless you reduce it hard. For a spoonable pudding count on roughly 3 to 4 tablespoons to that quantity of milk.
- Low heat, heavy panMilk thickened with starch catches on the bottom the moment it is left alone. Use a heavy saucepan over low heat, stir steadily for 15 to 20 minutes, or set it over simmering water and give it half an hour.
- Why the sugar goes in lateSugar added at the start makes the milk more prone to scorching and can slow the starch from setting. Stir it in once the mixture has visibly thickened, then give it a couple of minutes more.
- Flavourings are for infusing, not eatingA stick of cinnamon and a strip of thinly pared lemon peel, no pith. Both are lifted out before serving; only the grated nutmeg stays in.
- YieldTwo generous invalid servings, or four small cups as a nursery pudding. Serve warm; it thickens noticeably as it cools and will need loosening with a little more milk if held.
Ground rice occupied an odd middle ground in the Victorian kitchen, stocked as much for the sickroom as for the dessert course. Preparations like this one, milk thickened lightly with rice flour and scented with cinnamon, lemon peel and nutmeg, belonged to the same family as arrowroot, sago and gruel: bland, warm, easily swallowed food for invalids, children and the very old. The habit of holding back the sugar until the end appears in other nineteenth-century books, often explained on the grounds that early sugar prevented the mixture thickening properly; the more practical effect is that it is less likely to catch and burn.