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Rice-Water
Put seven pints of water to boil, add to it two ounces of washed rice, two ounces of sugar, and the peel of two-thirds of a lemon; boil gently for three-quarters of an hour; the liquid will reduce to five pints; strain through a colander, and the rice-water will be ready. The rice may be left in the beverage or made into a pudding, or by the addition of a little sugar or jam it will be found very good for either children or invalids.
A thin invalid drink of the kind every Victorian kitchen was expected to have on hand. The proportions are unusually generous with water, and the yield is the point.
- Scale it downSeven pints is roughly 4 litres of water to only 2 oz (about 1/3 cup) of rice — a full day's supply for a sickroom. A quarter batch (1 3/4 pints water, 1/2 oz rice, 1/2 oz sugar, a short strip of lemon peel) gives a little over a pint.
- PintsCassell's is British, so these are imperial pints of 20 fl oz. Seven imperial pints is about 8 1/2 US pints, reducing to about 6 US pints.
- Which riceUse a starchy short- or medium-grain white rice; the whole purpose is to leach starch into the water. Long-grain basmati gives a thinner result, and parboiled or converted rice barely clouds the water at all.
- Washing the riceThe original says washed rice, meaning grit rinsed off, not rice rinsed until the water runs clear. Do not over-rinse, or you pour away the starch you are trying to extract.
- Lemon peelTake the peel in wide strips with a peeler and leave the white pith behind — pith simmered for 45 minutes turns the drink bitter. Two-thirds of a lemon's worth is a suggestion, not a rule.
- Gentle boilA bare simmer with the lid off is what "boil gently" means here; the recipe depends on losing two pints to evaporation. A hard boil scorches the starch on the bottom of the pan.
- Serving and keepingServe warm or well chilled; it thickens noticeably as it cools and may need thinning with a little water. Because it is a low-acid starch liquid, refrigerate it and use it within two days.
- The leftover riceThe strained grains have given up their flavour and much of their body, so the suggested pudding wants milk, sugar and fresh flavouring rather than treating them as cooked rice for a savoury dish.
Rice-water belongs to the old category of "sick-room cookery" — barley water, gruel, beef tea, whey — light liquids given to invalids and infants when solid food was thought too taxing. Rice and barley decoctions were long recommended as bland, binding drinks in cases of bowel complaint, a practice generally traced back through European medical writing to much older Greek and Arabic dietetics; the modern oral rehydration solution, with its carbohydrate and its salt, is a distant relative of the idea, though the Victorian version has no salt at all. Cassell's flavours it with lemon peel and sugar, a small concession to palatability that marks the point where medicine shades into a household beverage.