Creamy Rice
1/4 cup rice 1/2 cup cream 1 1/2 cups milk 1 teaspoon salt Milk alone may be used, or a larger proportion of cream. Put the washed rice, cream, milk, and salt into the inner cup of a double boiler, set it in the outer cup, and cook two or three hours, or till a creamy mass is produced. This really does not need cream as a dressing. It may be served as a vegetable without dressing. It makes a very appetizing dish when served with half a canned peach on top of each helping, and some of the peach juice poured around it.
Rice and the coarser cereal preparations are enjoyable served with a fruit sauce. Nuts may then be sprinkled over the sauce, making the ideal combination of fruits, grains, and nuts.
A slow milk-cooked rice pudding without egg or sugar, closer to a porridge than a dessert. Nothing here is difficult, but the proportions and the salt need attention.
- SaltA full teaspoon for 1/4 cup of raw rice reads as very salty by current taste, especially if the dish is finished with peaches. A quarter teaspoon is nearer modern practice; add more at the end if it wants it.
- Inner and outer cupThis is a double boiler: the rice goes in the upper pan, simmering water in the lower. Keep the water below a hard boil and top it up during the long cooking so the lower pan never runs dry.
- Why so longTwo to three hours in gentle steam heat is what breaks the starch down into the "creamy mass" without scorching the milk. Direct heat over a burner would catch long before that.
- Rice to chooseA short or medium grain white rice gives the creamiest result. Long grain stays more separate, and modern parboiled or converted rice is far more resistant to breaking down.
- WashingInstructions to wash rice were routine when it was sold loose, and probably had as much to do with grit as with starch. Rinsing still removes loose surface starch, so skip it here if you want the mixture as thick as possible.
- YieldRoughly two cups finished, serving two generously or three as a side. It thickens further as it cools and can be loosened with a little more milk when reheated.
- The fruit finishCanned peach halves in syrup are what the author had in mind, and they work. Any soft poached fruit with its liquid does the same job, with toasted nuts scattered over as the recipe suggests.