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Rice (East Indian Method)
Wash 1/2 a pound of Patna rice in 2 or 3 waters. Drain it, and throw it into plenty of cold water, bring it slowly to the boil, keeping the saucepan uncovered, and let it boil gently until the grains are tender when pressed between the thumb and finger, but are still quite distinct from one another. The rice will need to boil about 1/4 of an hour. Drain and dry it on a sieve before the fire. Take 2 pounds of undressed meat of any kind, or of rabbit, chicken, or fish, and cut this up into neat pieces convenient for serving. Slice 2 large onions, and fry them in butter till they are lightly browned without being at all burnt. Take them up, and fry the meat in the same fat, moving it about to keep it from burning. Mix 1 dessertspoonful of curry paste, 1 dessertspoonful of curry powder, and 1 teaspoonful of ground rice very smoothly with 1 cupful of milk. Pour this over the meat, and add 1/2 a pint of good stock made from bones, the fried onions, a little salt, and 1 clove of garlic, if this is liked, but the curry will be more generally acceptable if the garlic is omitted. Stir the sauce till it boils, and simmer all gently together till the meat is tender. The time required will vary with the nature of the meat. Put the pieces of meat on a dish. Lift out the pieces of onion, and stir into the curry the juice of 1/2 a lemon. Pour the sauce over the meat, and serve. Send the rice to table on a separate dish. It should be arranged that the curry and the rice shall be done enough at the same time. Time, altogether, about two hours. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
Despite the title, this entry is a complete curry-and-rice dinner: the rice is boiled and dried separately, and the meat is finished in a milk-and-stock curry sauce. The instruction that matters most is the one buried at the end — the two dishes must finish together, so start the meat first and the rice about twenty minutes before you want to eat.
- DessertspoonfulA dessertspoon is two teaspoons, so this is about 2 teaspoons each of curry paste and curry powder for 2 lb of meat — mild by modern standards. Increase if you want more heat, but add the extra powder to the frying fat rather than the milk so it cooks out.
- Half a pint of stockWritten in imperial measure, so 10 fl oz, or 1 1/4 US cups. Combined with the cup of milk this gives a fairly loose sauce that reduces as the meat simmers.
- Undressed meat"Undressed" here means raw, not previously cooked. Two pounds of boneless shoulder lamb, beef chuck, chicken thigh or firm white fish all work; the book's instruction that the time "will vary with the nature of the meat" is the whole guidance you get — reckon 1 1/2 hours for beef or lamb, 35-40 minutes for chicken, 8-10 minutes for fish added at the end.
- Ground riceA coarsely ground rice flour, used here as the thickener. A teaspoonful slaked in the milk helps steady the sauce as it comes to the boil; cornstarch can stand in if you have no rice flour, though it thickens more strongly.
- Patna riceA long-grain rice associated with Patna, on the Ganges plain, and commonly called for in British curry recipes of the period. Any long-grain rice substitutes. Modern long-grain rice may well be tender before the quarter hour is up — check by pressing a grain as directed.
- Drying before the fireThe point is to drive off surface moisture so the grains stay separate. Spread the drained rice in a shallow pan and hold it in a 250F oven, uncovered, for five to ten minutes.
- Lemon and garlicThe lemon juice goes in after the meat and onions are lifted out, and it does a great deal for a sauce built on milk and curry powder. The single clove of garlic is optional in the original on grounds of taste rather than cookery; if you want it, and more of it, add it with the onions.
- YieldSix to eight, as stated, with about 8 oz of dry rice — light by current appetites if the curry is the only dish. Two hours total is realistic for a tough cut and generous for chicken.