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Rice Mould
Wash and drain a large cupful of the best Carolina rice. Put it into a saucepan with a piece of cinnamon, a bay-leaf, or the rind of half a lemon, and pour over it a cupful of cola water. Let it boil, then add two cupfuls of thin cream or good milk, and let the rice simmer gently until it is quite soft. Take out the flavouring ingredients, sweeten the rice, and beat well for three or four minutes. Press it into a damp mould, and let it remain until cold and stiff. Turn it out, garnish with preserved fruit or jelly of any kind, and pour a little thin custard round it. It is an excellent plan to put the rice, milk, etc., into an earthenware jar, to put this into a pan of boiling water, and steam until done enough. When prepared in this way the rice is less likely to burn and to become discoloured than when boiled in the saucepan, but care must be taken to keep a plentiful supply of boiling water round it. It will take longer to steam than to boil it. Instead of putting the rice into a plain mould, it may be pressed into a cylindrical mould, and the centre may be filled with custard; or it may be made into several little moulds, a little jam may be placed upon each, and custard poured round. The rice is excellent without custard. Probable cost of rice, when made with milk, 7d. Sufficient for five or six persons. Time, one hour and a half to two hours.
A starch-set rice pudding turned out of a mould — no gelatine, no eggs in the mould itself. The whole thing depends on cooking the rice until the grains collapse and the milk thickens to a paste stiff enough to hold a shape.
- "Cola water"A typesetting error for cold water. One cupful of water goes in with the rice at the start; the two cupfuls of milk or thin cream follow once it boils.
- Carolina riceOnce the standard American long-grain export rice, sold generically in British shops as the best quality available. For a mould that sets firmly, a short or medium-grain pudding rice releases more starch and holds better; long-grain will work but gives a looser, grainier result.
- Cups, not measuring cups"Cupful" here is almost certainly an ordinary teacup rather than a standardised measure, somewhere in the region of 6 to 8 fl oz. What matters is the ratio: one part rice to one part water plus two parts milk. Scale from there.
- The hinge: beat it hotThe three or four minutes of beating at the end is what makes this a mould rather than a bowl of rice pudding. It breaks the softened grains and works the starch into a homogeneous paste that grips as it cools. Skip it and the turned-out shape will slump.
- SweeteningNo quantity is given. Two to three tablespoons of sugar for this volume suits a dessert served with jam or preserved fruit; more if it is going out plain.
- "Thin cream"Roughly today's single cream, about 18% fat. Whole milk is the alternative the recipe itself offers, and the stated cost of 7d assumes it.
- TimingThe book gives one and a half to two hours without tying it to either method; it only notes that the steamed jar takes longer than the saucepan, so the range probably spans both. Simmered directly in a heavy saucepan over low heat, with stirring, the rice will be soft towards the shorter end of that range. The water-bath is slower but far harder to scorch, which is the point of it.
- UnmouldingWetting the mould rather than greasing it is correct — the film of water lets the starch release cleanly. Chill until fully cold and firm, several hours at least, before turning out.
- YieldFive or six, as stated. The "thin custard" poured round is a pouring custard, not a set one.
Moulded rice belongs to a whole family of Victorian starch-set puddings — cornflour, arrowroot, sago, semolina — that gave a cook something impressive-looking for very little money, which is why Cassell's prints the cost in pence. The reference to Carolina rice reflects the nineteenth-century trade in which the tidewater plantations of South Carolina and Georgia supplied Europe with what was generally regarded as the finest table rice; by the time this dictionary was compiled that industry may well have been in decline, and "Carolina" is often said to have been drifting into a grade name rather than a place of origin. The instruction to cook the rice in a covered jar standing in boiling water is older still, a domestic version of the bain-marie used long before reliable low heat existed on a range, and it seems to have survived in English kitchens for some time afterwards for anything milky and prone to catching.