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Rice Mould, Rechauffe Of
Beat up the rice with a quarter of a pint of milk, add a beaten egg, a table-spoonful of washed currants, and a little grated nutmeg. Press the rice into a mould, lay a buttered paper on top, and steam it for an hour and a half. Serve with jam or sweet sauce. (See SWEET SAUCE FOR PUDDINGS.)
This is a leftover-pudding entry rather than a standalone recipe: it assumes you already have a cold, set rice mould or a bowl of cooked milk-rice on hand, and tells you how to turn it into a fresh steamed pudding. A few of its terms and timings need translating.
- The unstated quantityNo amount of rice is given, since the recipe assumes the remains of a previous dish. As a working guide, a quarter pint of milk and one egg will bind roughly 1 lb (about 2 cups) of cooked rice pudding; if the mixture will not hold a shape when pressed with a spoon, it is too wet for the mould.
- A quarter of a pintThis is an imperial quarter-pint, 5 fl oz, or about 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons. Add it gradually — cold rice that has been standing overnight absorbs far more liquid than rice cooked the same day.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. "Washed" is worth doing: older dried fruit was sold unwashed and gritty, and a rinse in hot water still plumps the fruit usefully. Drain and pat dry so it does not loosen the mixture.
- Buttered paperBaking parchment, buttered on the side that faces the pudding, then covered with foil or a tied cloth. The point is a seal that condensation cannot drip through; a plain paper lid alone will let steam water the top of the pudding.
- Steaming timeAn hour and a half is generous for a mixture that is already cooked through. All the pudding needs is enough heat to set the egg and firm the shape — 45 minutes to an hour in a covered steamer or a covered pan with an inch of simmering water is ample. Longer will not spoil it but will make the outside dense.
- Turning outLet the mould stand five minutes off the heat before inverting, so the set edges pull away cleanly. Butter the mould generously beforehand; a plain charlotte tin or pudding basin of about 1 pint capacity works better than a fluted mould, which tears rice.
- Yield and servingAbout four modest portions. It is served hot, with jam thinned with a spoonful of water or the book's sweet sauce; unlike a cold rice mould, it does not keep well a second time.
Réchauffé is simply French for "reheated", and in Victorian and Edwardian kitchen books it functioned as a respectable heading under which to file the reuse of yesterday's food. Rice puddings — cheap, filling, and made in quantity because milk and rice both went further than meat — were among the commonest things left over in a household. Turning the cold remains into a steamed and moulded pudding with egg, dried fruit and nutmeg was a common trick: the egg gives it enough body to stand up on a dish, and the nutmeg and currants disguise the flatness that cooked rice acquires overnight.