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Rice Souffle Made with Ground Rice
Mix three table-spoonfuls of ground rice to a smooth paste, add gradually as much more as will make the quantity up to one pint, and a pinch of butter about the size of a walnut. Stir the mixture over the fire for about a quarter of an hour, or until it thickens, then pour it out, and when it is a little cool add some sugar and any flavouring that may be liked. The less sugar used the lighter will be the souffle. Add, one by one, the well-beaten yolks of five eggs, and just before the souffle is put into the oven, stir in the whites of six eggs beaten to a firm froth. Proceed according to the directions given in the preceding recipe. Bake the souffle in a brisk oven, and serve as quickly as possible after it is taken out. Time to bake, half an hour. Probable cost, if made with milk, 1s. 3d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian rice-flour soufflé, closer to a baked semolina pudding lightened with egg white than to a modern cheese soufflé. The instructions assume you have read the preceding entry in the book, so a few things are left unsaid.
- The missing liquidThe original never names the liquid you mix the ground rice with. The line "probable cost, if made with milk" makes clear that milk is intended, with water as the cheaper option; you are making one pint of thin rice-flour porridge in all.
- Ground rice is not riceGround rice is rice milled to a flour, traditionally a little coarser than modern rice starch; the nearest modern substitute is rice flour. It is not broken or short-grain rice, and whole grains will not do here: the mixture must thicken into a smooth paste.
- Butter the size of a walnutAbout 1 oz, or 2 tablespoons. "A pinch of butter" is an odd phrasing even for the period; the walnut is the measurement that matters.
- Brisk ovenNo temperature is given; "brisk" is usually read as somewhere around 400-425F. A souffle of this size wants heat high enough to inflate it quickly, and the book allows half an hour.
- Fifteen minutes of stirringThe book allows about a quarter of an hour, or until the paste thickens. Use a heavy pan and a low flame; the paste scorches readily once it thickens.
- Six whites to five yolksThe extra white is very likely intentional and is the source of the lift. Fold it in with a light hand at the last moment and put the dish straight into the oven, as the book says.
- Cool before the yolks"When it is a little cool" means well off the boil, no more than hand-hot. Beaten yolks stirred into near-boiling rice paste will scramble into threads.
- SugarThe note that less sugar makes a lighter souffle is consistent with practice: sugar adds weight to the batter. Two to three tablespoons is enough for a pint, with vanilla, lemon zest or a spoonful of liqueur for flavour.
- Yield and servingFive or six as written. It will begin to sink within a few minutes of leaving the oven, which is why the book insists on speed; a cold cream or fruit compote alongside is period-appropriate.
Ground rice was one of the cheap thickeners that made puddings possible in ordinary Victorian households, along with sago, tapioca, arrowroot and cornflour, and Cassell's runs several soufflés on the same principle: a stiff farinaceous base, egg yolks for richness, whipped whites for air. The soufflé is generally said to have come into English cookery from France, and was still treated as a display dish, which is why the book stresses that it must reach the table at once. The costing in shillings and pence is a standard feature of the Cassell's cookery dictionaries — Cassell's issued a Dictionary of Cookery and, later, a New Dictionary of Cookery — compendia aimed at the middle-class mistress who had to keep accounts as well as menus, and the pudding is costed at 1s 3d for six.