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Oranges and Rice
This may be prepared and served in two different ways: as a breakfast dish or a dessert. If for the former, cook plain boiled rice, using half milk and half water, and adding one-half cup of sugar. Serve with thin-sliced oranges. As a compote, for dessert, pare the orange to the fruitpulp, then halve (across) and cut out the core of each. Have ready a syrup of sugar and water with a little lemon juice added, and in this cook the oranges until tender and clear, but not until they come to pieces. Place them around a mound of plain boiled rice and pour the syrup over the fruit and rice. Serve with cream, whipped or plain, or a sweet custard sauce.
The recipe assumes you already know how to boil rice and expects you to judge the syrup by eye. Both versions work, but the proportions and timings need pinning down.
- The hinge: watch the oranges, not the clockHalved oranges in syrup can pass from tender to collapsed quickly. Simmer gently, uncovered, and lift them out with a slotted spoon as soon as they look tender and clear, as the recipe directs, rather than working to a set time.
- "Pare to the fruitpulp"This means cutting away peel, all white pith and the outer membrane so the flesh is exposed, the way you would supreme an orange. A knife, not a peeler.
- "Cut out the core"Halved across, each orange shows the fibrous central column; flick it out with the tip of a paring knife so the halves sit flat.
- The syrupNo proportions are given. A light syrup of 1 cup sugar to 1 1/2 cups water with the juice of half a lemon is enough for four to six orange halves. The lemon juice is there to keep the syrup from crystallising and to cut the sweetness.
- The breakfast riceThe recipe does not say how much rice; half a cup of sugar implies a fairly large quantity, perhaps a cup of raw rice with at least twice its volume of liquid, half milk and half water. Milk scorches, so cook it over low heat and stir; a heavy pan helps.
- Rice for the compote"Plain boiled rice" here most likely means cooked in water and unsweetened, since the sugar is specified only for the breakfast version; the recipe's "mound" implies shaping it while still warm. A short or medium grain holds the shape best.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; four as a dessert is a reasonable estimate. Both versions are arguably better warm than hot, and the compote can be assembled at the last minute from components made earlier in the day.
- Custard sauceThe sweet custard sauce called for is a stirred crème anglaise, not a baked custard. Cook it to about 175F, until it coats a spoon, and do not let it boil.
Sweetened rice served with fruit sits at the join between two older traditions: the medieval and early modern European habit of treating rice as a sweet dish cooked in milk, and the nineteenth-century fashion for compotes — fruit poached whole or in pieces in light syrup and served in its own liquid, a technique associated with French dessert cookery. The pairing of a breakfast dish and a formal dessert in a single entry is the kind of economy such books often practise. The instruction to pare the orange down to the pulp reflects a period preference for fruit served without any trace of pith or membrane.