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Rice Milk
Wash two table-spoonfuls of rice, and simmer it in a quart of milk till tender. Put a piece of butter the size of a pea into it, and stir occasionally to keep it from burning. Rub it through a sieve, sweeten and flavour it, boil up again, and serve. When milk is not plentiful, the rice may be softened in water, and afterwards boiled in a small quantity of milk. This is a very wholesome dish for children. A little finely-shredded suet boiled with it will make it more nourishing. Time to boil, three-quarters of an hour to one hour and a quarter. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A thin, sieved rice pudding meant to be drunk or spooned rather than baked — closer to a rice-thickened milk soup than to the set puddings of the same era.
- The hinge: low heat and frequent stirringA quart of milk with only two tablespoons of rice scorches easily, and burnt milk taints the whole pot. Use a heavy pan over the lowest workable heat and stir up from the bottom every few minutes; a double boiler removes the risk altogether at the cost of a longer cook.
- Quantities and yieldTwo tablespoons of rice to a quart (an imperial quart, roughly 1.1 litres) of milk is a very slack ratio by modern standards — expect a pourable liquid, not a pudding. The book says three to four servings, which works out at roughly 10 to 13 fl oz each: a nursery or invalid portion.
- The ricePudding rice or another short, starchy grain gives the best body; long-grain rice will soften but releases less starch and leaves the milk thin. The washing step matters less now that rice is not shipped dusty, but a rinse still removes loose surface starch.
- "Butter the size of a pea"Roughly a quarter-teaspoon. The recipe does not say what it is for; at that quantity it can only be a finishing touch rather than an enrichment.
- SievingRubbing through a sieve was the standard route to a smooth texture before blenders. A stick blender does the same job in seconds; sieve afterwards only if you want it perfectly slick.
- TimingThree-quarters of an hour to an hour and a quarter is accurate for milk at a bare simmer — the rice needs to collapse, not merely soften. Rushing it at a boil gives grainy milk and a skin that keeps re-forming.
- FlavouringThe recipe says only "sweeten and flavour it." Lemon peel, a blade of mace, cinnamon or bay steeped in the milk are all plausible period choices. The book sweetens before the final boil-up; if you prefer, stir the sugar in at the very end, since sugar cooked long in milk catches more readily on the base.
- The suetShredded beef suet was the book's way of making the dish "more nourishing" for a weak or growing child. It is optional; leave it out unless you are curious.
- CostSixpence for a quart of milk and a couple of spoonfuls of rice makes this a notably cheap dish, and the recipe offers a further economy for when milk is short.
Rice milk of this kind belongs to the long English tradition of "spoon meat" — soft, milky, easily digested food prescribed for infants, invalids and the elderly, alongside gruel, arrowroot, panada and sago. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, compiled for large late-Victorian middle-class households, carries a number of such entries, and their tone is consistently practical rather than indulgent: note the alternative for when "milk is not plentiful" and the suggestion of suet to make the dish "more nourishing." Rice itself had shifted over the nineteenth century from an expensive import to a cheap staple. The instruction to rub the cooked rice through a sieve reflects a widespread period belief that smooth, unresisting food was gentler on a delicate stomach — a conviction that governed sickroom cookery long before nutrition was understood in modern terms.