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Venetian Fritters
Take three dessert-spoonfuls of Carolina rice. Wash, pick, and dry it, and put it into a saucepan with half a pint of new milk. Put with it a piece of butter the size of a walnut, let it boil, then simmer gently till it is tender and has absorbed all the milk. Beat it well with a table-spoonful of powdered sugar and a pinch of salt; and when cold add a little grated lemon-rind an ounce and a half of currants, a large apple pared, cored, and chopped small, half a tea-spoonful of flour, and two well-beaten eggs. Keep the mixture in a cool place till wanted. Drop it in spoonfuls into hot fat, and fry these over a gentle fire till they are lightly browned. When they are firm upon one side turn them carefully upon the other. Drain them and serve on a hot dish with powdered sugar sifted over them. Time to fry the fritters, five or six minutes, Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A sweet rice fritter, essentially a cold, stiff rice pudding bound with egg and dropped into fat. The whole recipe hinges on getting the rice base dry and thoroughly chilled before it goes near the pan.
- Carolina riceA long-grain white rice once grown in the Carolinas and the standard pudding rice of Victorian Britain. Any short- or medium-grain pudding rice gives a better, stickier result today; avoid parboiled or basmati.
- MeasuresThree dessert-spoonfuls is roughly two tablespoons of dry rice. Half a pint imperial is 10 fl oz (about 1 1/4 cups), and butter "the size of a walnut" means about 1 oz, or 2 tablespoons.
- New milkFresh, unskimmed whole milk; 'new' distinguishes it from skimmed or watered milk, a common complaint of the period. Whole milk is the direct equivalent.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. An ounce and a half is about 1/3 cup; rinse and dry them so they do not weep into the mixture.
- Cook the rice drySimmer until the grains are tender and the milk is entirely absorbed, then beat hard while hot to break the grains down. Any loose liquid left in the base will make the fritters spread and fall apart in the fat.
- Chill before frying"Keep the mixture in a cool place till wanted" is not a convenience, it is structural. An hour or more in the refrigerator firms the starch so the spoonfuls hold their shape.
- Fat temperatureA 'gentle fire' means a moderate frying heat rather than a fierce one; somewhere around 340-350F suits. Hotter and the outside browns before the raw egg and apple inside are cooked; five or six minutes, as the recipe gives, is right for a tablespoon-sized fritter.
- YieldThree or four servings as written; the quantity of mixture will give perhaps eight to twelve small fritters. They are best eaten within minutes of draining, while the outside is still crisp.
Fritters of this kind belong to the Venetian carnival tradition of fritole, the sweet fried dough balls studded with raisins and peel that were sold from street stalls in the weeks before Lent; rice-based versions, frittelle di riso, are found across northern and central Italy, though they attach to several different feast days rather than to carnival alone. Cassell's, like many late-Victorian English compendia, collected continental dishes under loose national labels, and the name here signals foreignness and novelty more than any documented Venetian original, particularly with the very English addition of currants and a chopped apple. What the entry does record faithfully is the period's habit of turning a cooked rice pudding into a second dish, and its careful note of cost: sixpence for a sweet course for three or four.