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Rice Meringue
Boil half a pound of rice in water till almost tender, drain it, and put it into a saucepan with a pint of milk and a little sugar and flavouring. Let it simmer till it has absorbed all the milk, pour it out, and stir into it the well-beaten yolks of four eggs. Spread it on a buttered dish, beat the whites of the eggs to a firm froth with a table-spoonful of powdered and sifted loaf sugar, and lay this neatly and evenly over the surface. Sprinkle a little powdered sugar on the top, and bake in a moderately-heated oven till the surface is brightly browned. The meringue will be improved if any kind of fruit is boiled to pulp, sweetened, and laid in the centre of the dish, the rice being arranged in a wall round it, and the white of egg plastered over all. Time to brown the surface, ten to fifteen minutes. Probable cost, exclusive of the fruit, 1s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A soft-meringue rice pudding of the kind Victorian cooks made to use up a surplus of eggs. Nothing here is difficult, but the quantities and the meringue need translating.
- The riceHalf a pound is about 225 g, roughly 1 1/8 cups of short-grain pudding rice. Long-grain will work but stays separate rather than setting into the creamy wall the recipe wants.
- A pint of milkCassell's is British, so this is an imperial pint: 20 fl oz, or 2 1/2 US cups. Using a 16 oz US pint gives a stiffer, drier rice.
- "Moderately-heated oven"350F / 175C. Ten to fifteen minutes at that heat browns the meringue tips without drying the rice beneath.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a solid cone and crushed as needed; "powdered and sifted" means what we would call caster or superfine sugar. Ordinary granulated sugar, given a few seconds in a spice grinder, is the same thing.
- Adding the yolksStir the yolks in off the heat and work quickly, or slacken them first with a spoonful of the hot rice. Four yolks dropped into a pan of just-simmered rice will scramble in streaks if the pan is still on the burner.
- The meringue is under-sugaredOne tablespoon of sugar to four whites is far below the modern ratio of roughly two tablespoons per white. It will froth up and brown, but it beads and weeps quickly. Increasing the sugar to about 1/2 cup gives a meringue that holds through serving.
- The fruit versionAny thick, well-reduced fruit pulp works; a loose compote will bleed into the rice. Build the rice wall while it is still warm and pliable, and let the fruit cool before it goes in the middle.
- YieldFive or six, as stated, as a pudding course. Serve within an hour of baking, warm rather than hot; the meringue collapses on standing and does not reheat.
Rice puddings crowned with meringue belong to a long line of Victorian supper-table sweets built on cheap starch and a few eggs. Rice was inexpensive and widely available in Britain by the 1870s, and books like Cassell's routinely list the probable cost of a dish so that a household could judge it against its weekly allowance: one shilling for six servings, fruit excepted, places this among the economical puddings rather than the dinner-party ones. The technique of separating eggs and using the yolks to enrich a base while the whites go on top as a browned froth is the same logic behind queen of puddings and lemon meringue pie. The instruction to build the rice into a wall around a well of fruit reflects the period's fondness for shaping and moulding sweet dishes.