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Rice Pudding, Boiled, Superior
No. 1.--Wash a quarter of a pound of rice, and boil it gently in a pint and a half of milk till it is soft and thick. The milk should be sweetened and flavoured pleasantly with lemon or orange-rind, or almond, cocoa-nut, or vanilla. Pour the mixture into a basin, and when cold stir into it a slice of butter, four well-whisked eggs, and a spoonful of brandy--the brandy, however, may be omitted. Pour the pudding into a mould which it will quite fill, lay a buttered paper upon it, tie it in a floured cloth, plunge it into boiling water, and keep it boiling quickly until done enough. Serve with sweet sauce, stewed fruit, cream, or jam. Time to boil, one hour. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for four or five persons. No. 2.--Boil four ounces of rice in water till it is soft and thick. Put it dry into a mortar, and pound well with a slice of fresh butter, five well-beaten yolks of eggs, three table-spoonfuls of sugar, a pound of picked and washed currants, and a flavouring of lemon, nutmeg, or vanilla. Beat the mixture thoroughly, put it into a floured cloth, plunge it into boiling water, and boil until done enough, or strain it over boiling water for the same time. Turn the pudding out carefully, and serve with sweet or wine sauce. Time to boil, one hour and a half. Probable cost, 1s. 3d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
Two boiled rice puddings: the first a set custard-rice, the second a dense pounded pudding heavy with currants. Both are cooked in a cloth or a filled mould in boiling water, which is the part that needs the most attention.
- The hinge: keep the water at a hard boilA boiled pudding that is allowed to drop to a simmer takes on water through the cloth and goes sodden. Keep it at a rolling boil throughout and top up with boiling water from a kettle, never cold.
- Imperial measuresA quarter pound of rice is about 115 g, four ounces the same; a pint and a half is an imperial pint and a half, 30 fl oz or roughly 3 1/2 US cups of milk. A "slice" of butter is unmeasured in the original; take it as a cut off the block, perhaps 1 oz (30 g).
- Which riceUse a short-grain pudding rice or arborio, which breaks down and thickens. Long-grain and parboiled rice stay separate and will not give the soft, thick mass the recipe depends on.
- Filling the mould"A mould which it will quite fill" is deliberate: an air gap lets the pudding shift and break when turned out. Butter the mould, fill it level, cover with buttered paper, then tie the floured cloth tight over the top.
- "Strain it over boiling water"In No. 2 this most likely means suspending the cloth-tied pudding above the water and covering it, i.e. steaming rather than immersing. It is the easier option in a modern kitchen.
- The mortarThe pounding in No. 2 is to break the rice grains into a paste. A few short pulses in a food processor does the same; go too far and the mixture turns gluey.
- That pound of currants450 g of dried currants to 115 g of rice makes an extremely fruit-dense pudding by current taste. Half that quantity gives something closer to what most cooks now expect.
- Doneness and serving"Until done enough" means the pudding is firm to a press through the cloth and a skewer comes out clean — an hour for No. 1, ninety minutes for No. 2. Rest it five minutes before turning out. "Sweet sauce" is a sugared white sauce or melted butter, sugar and wine; each pudding serves four to five.
- Cost note1s. and 1s. 3d. are pre-decimal shillings, quoted for a household budgeting in the 1870s and 80s, and tell you only that this was an inexpensive dish.
Boiled puddings tied in a floured cloth were a mainstay of English domestic cookery from the seventeenth century onward: the cloth freed the cook from needing an oven, letting a pudding share the fire with everything else. The two variants are set out numbered and side by side so a mistress or cook could pick according to purse and occasion — "superior" here appears to mean enriched with eggs, butter, brandy or a pound of currants, as against a plain nursery rice pudding of rice, milk and sugar. Rice had by this date shifted from a costly imported thickener to a cheap staple of the grocer's shelf, which is part of why a pudding built on it could be called superior only once the expensive additions were in. The flavourings offered — lemon or orange rind, almond, coconut, vanilla — are consistent with what a late-Victorian British grocery stocked.