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Russian Rice Pudding
Make a syrup of a quarter of a pint of cold water, and a quarter of a pound of lump sugar; boil them for a few minutes, skimming well, then stir in a little essence of nutmeg or ginger and a table-spoonful of lemon-juice, and boil for a few minutes more. Add three ounces of rice that has been boiled in water and drained and left to get cold, cover the pan, and leave it for a quarter of an hour just below boiling point. Add half a glass of good rum, and cover again for ten minutes. Turn out in a deep, glass dish to cool, and when cold serve with any nice fruit. Arrange the fruit on top, and pour some of the syrup round. Probable cost, 8d., without fruit.
An unusual rice pudding: no milk, no eggs, no oven. The rice is steeped in a spiced sugar syrup and served cold with fruit, closer to a compote than to a baked pudding.
- The hinge: never let it boilAfter the cooked rice goes in, the pan is held just below boiling point for fifteen minutes. That gentle heat lets the grains drink the syrup without bursting; a rolling boil turns the whole thing to starchy paste and clouds the syrup.
- A quarter of a pintAn imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, just under two-thirds of a US cup. A quarter of a pound is 4 oz of sugar, so sugar and water go in at roughly equal weights: a simple syrup rather than a heavy one.
- Lump sugarLoaf or lump sugar was refined white sugar broken from a cone or pressed block. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct substitute, weighed rather than measured.
- Essence of nutmeg or gingerVictorian flavouring essences were often alcoholic extracts, bought from a chemist or a grocer. For a modern stand-in, use a couple of drops of ginger extract, or infuse the syrup with a bruised slice of fresh ginger or a grating of nutmeg and strain it out.
- Three ounces of riceProbably the dry weight before boiling, a scant half cup, giving roughly 9 oz cooked, though the wording leaves it open. A short or medium grain pudding rice suits this better than long grain, which stays separate.
- Half a glass of rumA wine glass of the period ran 2 to 2.5 fl oz, so half a glass is about 1 to 1.25 fl oz. It goes in off the boil and stays raw, which is the point — but it also means the alcohol is not cooked away.
- Yield and servingThree ounces of rice will stretch to perhaps three or four small portions. Chill it thoroughly in the glass dish; stone fruit, berries or poached pears all suit it.
- Probable cost, 8d.Cassell's gave a 'probable cost' in pre-decimal pence for most of its recipes, for readers keeping household accounts. Eightpence puts this among the cheaper sweets.
Cassell's, like other late-Victorian English cookery dictionaries, attached national labels loosely, and there is nothing distinctively Russian about the method here. What is genuinely notable is the absence of milk and eggs, which separates this from the baked rice pudding of the same book and puts it nearer the rice-and-syrup sweets served cold in glass.