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Rissoles, Rice
Boil half a pound of rice till soft and dry. Beat it well, and mix with it the well-beaten yolks of three eggs, two table-spoonfuls of good white sauce, and a little pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg. Beat the mixture over the fire till the eggs are set, then turn it upon a dish. When cold, mould a spoonful of it in a tea-cup to a hollow round form, put into the centre any kind of savoury mince, and cover with the rice. Dip the rissoles in egg and bread-crumbs, and fry them in hot fat till they are lightly browned. Drain them, dish them neatly on a napkin, and serve very hot. Time to beat the rice over the fire with the eggs, five minutes. To fry the rissoles, five or six minutes. Probable cost, 3d. each. Sufficient, eight or ten for a dish.
A Victorian way of turning leftover rice and cold cooked meat into a fried croquette. The hinge is the rice paste: it must be stiff and thoroughly dry, or the rissoles will burst in the fat.
- The riceHalf a pound is a generous cup of dry rice (about 225 g), giving roughly three cups cooked. Use a starchy short- or medium-grain rice and boil it well past al dente, then dry it out over low heat; long-grain basmati stays too separate to bind.
- "Beat it well"This means mashing the hot rice to a paste with a wooden spoon so the starch is released. A few pulses in a food processor does the same, but stop before it turns to glue.
- Good white sauceA thick béchamel: 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp flour, about 1/2 cup milk, cooked out and well seasoned. Two tablespoons is all that goes in, so make it stiff rather than pourable.
- Setting the eggsFive minutes over the fire means low, constant heat and constant stirring, as for a thick custard. Take it off the moment the mass pulls away from the pan in one lump; if the eggs scramble the paste turns grainy and will not mould.
- The minceAny savoury mince must be fully cooked and cold before it goes in the centre. Frying is only long enough to brown the crumb, not to cook a filling through. Cold minced roast lamb, beef or chicken bound with a spoonful of gravy is the traditional choice.
- Moulding in a tea-cupA teacup of the period held somewhere around 6 fl oz and serves here as a former: press the rice up the sides to make a cup, fill, then cap with more rice and seal the seam carefully. Chilling the shaped rissoles before crumbing is not in the original but helps them hold together.
- FryingThe recipe says only "hot fat"; in modern terms that is deep-frying at about 350-375F. Five or six minutes at that heat browns the crumb and warms the centre; hotter fat colours the outside before the middle is hot, cooler fat lets fat soak in.
- Yield and servingThe book gives eight or ten rissoles for a dish, served as a first course or light supper. The napkin was there to absorb frying fat; a wire rack and a warm plate work better.
- The cost note"3d. each" is three pence in pre-decimal currency, a housekeeping figure of no use now beyond showing this was reckoned a cheap dish.
Rissoles belong to the large family of Victorian "made dishes" built on the previous day's joint, and a cookery dictionary of this size gives several versions, each named for what does the binding: potato, bread, and here rice. The word comes into English from Old French roissole or rissole, from a Vulgar Latin root meaning reddish-brown, the verb rissoler being derived from the noun rather than the other way about; and by the nineteenth century in England it had settled on a crumbed, deep-fried shape enclosing a mince. Rice is generally said to have arrived in the British kitchen mainly as a pudding grain and a soup thickener, and its use as a savoury casing reflects the period's interest in economical entrees that looked as though they had cost more than they did. The instruction to dish them on a napkin was standard service for anything fried, and the printed price per rissole marks this as a book written for households keeping accounts.