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Rice, Spanish Way of Cooking
Boil half a pound of rice as for curry. If liked, broth can be used instead of water. Dry it well, and fry it with a slice of butter till it is lightly browned. Stir into it two large ripe tomatoes, or failing these a table-spoonful of tomato sauce and a table-spoonful of grated cheese; season it with white pepper. Work it lightly with two forks, and serve it, piled high in a hot dish, with slices of ham, bacon, or German sausage round it; failing these, use dried haddock, herring, or smoked salmon in strips. Time, a few minutes to brown the rice. Probable cost, 7d., exclusive of the meat or fish round the rice. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A fried rice dish in all but name, and the sort of thing a Victorian kitchen made with yesterday's boiled rice. The instructions are compressed rather than difficult; two or three assumptions need unpacking.
- "Boil as for curry"This means plain rice in abundant salted water, drained the moment it is tender, then spread out and dried so the grains stay separate. A long-grain rice is right; short or pudding rice will clump when it hits the butter.
- Dry it wellThis is the hinge of the recipe. Damp rice steams in the pan instead of browning, and you end up with a soft mass rather than the lightly toasted grains the recipe is after. Cooling the drained rice uncovered, or using rice cooked the day before, works best.
- A slice of butterAn old shorthand for a piece cut from the block, roughly 1 to 2 tablespoons. Use enough to coat the rice without pooling.
- The tomatoesTwo large ripe tomatoes are best skinned, seeded and chopped, or they will water the pan down. Out of season, chopped tinned tomatoes drained of juice are closer to the intent than bottled sauce.
- Tomato sauceIn Victorian usage this generally means a cooked, thin tomato sauce rather than bottled ketchup. Modern ketchup is much sweeter and will taste wrong here; passata or a plain tomato sauce is the better substitute.
- White pepperCommonly chosen so the rice is not flecked with black. Black pepper differs a little in flavour but will do if you do not mind the look.
- German sausageIn Victorian usage this generally meant a large cured, ready-to-eat smoked sausage, sliced thin. Any firm smoked sausage serves; if it is fresh rather than cured, cook it before arranging it round the rice.
- The dried fish optionDried haddock here means salted, smoked fish of the finnan type, which must be poached and flaked before it goes near the dish. Smoked salmon can go on in strips as it is.
- YieldHalf a pound of raw rice is generous for five or six only as a side or as the base of a composed plate with the meat or fish supplying the substance. As a main dish it feeds three.
Nineteenth-century English cookbooks tended to use "Spanish" loosely for almost any savoury rice reddened with tomato, and this recipe belongs to that tradition rather than to any particular dish from Spain: there is no saffron, no sofrito, no cooking of the rice in its liquid, and the rice is boiled separately and then fried, which is closer to a pilaf or a thrifty reheating method than to paella. What it does record accurately is the Victorian habit of treating rice as a vehicle for whatever cured meat or smoked fish the larder held, with the alternatives offered in order of availability ham and haddock or herring "failing these." The costing of sevenpence, exclusive of the garnish, marks it as a supper dish for a household watching the budget, and the tomato "sauce" fallback reflects a period when ripe fresh tomatoes were not always to be had.