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Raisins and Rice
To three-fourths cup of rice allow one cup of raisins. Have washed and dried the rice and place it in rapidly boiling water (two quarts, salted) for fifteen minutes, when it should be quite tender and flaky. Remove and drain in colander and steam over boiling water. Have the raisins washed and simmered till tender in just a little water. When the rice is done mix raisins and juice with it and serve.
A plain boiled-rice pudding-adjacent side dish from the era before absorption cooking took over. The method — boil in abundant salted water, drain, then steam dry — is sound and still gives separate, flaky grains.
- Which riceA long-grain white rice of the Carolina type suits this method best. Avoid arborio and other short-grain risotto or sushi rices, which release starch and go creamy rather than flaky.
- Washing and dryingRinsing until the water runs clear removes surface starch and is what keeps the grains separate. The "dried" step matters less now, but a few minutes spread on a towel does no harm.
- Fifteen minutes is a maximumStart testing at 10 minutes and pull the rice while the grains still have the barest bite, since the steaming stage continues cooking.
- The steaming stepSet the drained colander over a pan of simmering water, cover with a cloth or lid, and leave 8-10 minutes off direct heat. This drives off surface moisture and is the difference between flaky and sticky.
- The raisinsSimmer in barely enough water to cover until plump, roughly 10 minutes. Seeded muscat or Malaga raisins were available in this period; ordinary Thompson seedless will do.
- Salt and sweetnessThe rice is salted, the raisins are not sweetened, and no sugar is added. The recipe gives no serving suggestion; add sugar or cinnamon only if you want to push it towards a dessert.
- YieldThree-quarters cup of raw rice serves three to four as a side dish.
Raisins were among the dried fruits available in the American pantry before mechanical refrigeration, and books of this period lean on them heavily — in puddings, in sauces, in bread, and, as here, folded through a plain grain. This particular recipe belongs to a genre of "fruit with starch" dishes that sat comfortably between side dish and dessert, served alongside roast meats as often as after them. The insistence on boiling rice in a large volume of salted water and then steaming it dry reflects the standard English and American technique of the nineteenth century, taught in cookery schools as the correct way to produce grains that were, in the recipe's own phrase, "tender and flaky" rather than a wet mass.