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Rice Boiled with Milk
Wash and boil as for the preceding. When it has boiled ten minutes drain off the water, and pour over enough hot milk to nearly cover the rice; cook another ten minutes with the kettle covered--it should be put in a double boiler when the milk is added. Remove the cover and let it stand where it will keep hot and dry off; tossing it gently with a fork to allow the steam to escape more freely.
Serve on a hot dish.
A plain milk-finished rice served as a vegetable side rather than a pudding. The instruction that matters is the double boiler: milk scorches on direct heat and rice sinks to the bottom of the pan, so gentle indirect heat is what keeps it from catching.
- "As for the preceding"The earlier method is not reproduced here, but the standard period approach was to wash the rice in several changes of cold water and drop it into a large quantity of fast-boiling salted water. Salt the water at that stage, since the milk stage adds none.
- Twenty minutes totalTwenty minutes of cooking -- ten in water and ten in milk, as the recipe directs. Modern long-grain white rice will usually be tender in about that time; parboiled or converted rice needs longer, and short-grain or arborio will turn sticky and defeat the purpose.
- How much milk"Enough to nearly cover" works out to roughly 1 to 1 1/2 cups whole milk per cup of raw rice. Heat it before it goes in, or the rice stops cooking while the pan catches up.
- The kettleHere "kettle" means the cooking pot, not a water-boiler. Set that pot over simmering water once the milk is in.
- Drying offThe final uncovered rest is what turns a wet mass into separate grains. A few minutes somewhere warm, such as the back of the stove, forked through gently once or twice, is enough.
- YieldOne cup of raw rice gives about three cups cooked, serving four as a side. It does not reheat well; the milk sets it firm once cold.
- SeasoningThe recipe calls for none at this stage, leaving the rice plain to sit under gravy or beside a stew. A little butter and white pepper forked in at the drying stage does no harm.