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Rice Croquettes with Jelly
1/2 cup rice 1/2 cup boiling water 1 cup scalded milk 1 teaspoon salt Yolks 2 eggs 1 tablespoon butter Wash rice, add to water with salt, cover, and steam until rice has absorbed water. Then add milk, stir lightly with a fork, cover, and steam until rice is soft. Remove from fire, add egg yolks and butter; spread on a shallow plate to cool. Shape in balls, roll in crumbs, then shape in form of nests. Dip in egg, again in crumbs, fry in deep fat, and drain. Put a cube of jelly in each croquette. Arrange on a folded napkin, and garnish with parsley, or serve around game.
A plain rice croquette shaped into a nest to hold a cube of tart jelly, meant as a garnish course or an accompaniment to game. The whole thing hinges on getting the rice paste cold and firm before shaping.
- Chill it properly"Spread on a shallow plate to cool" means cool it thoroughly, not just off the boil. An hour in the refrigerator gives a paste stiff enough to shape; warm rice will slump and burst in the fat.
- Steaming the riceThe recipe says only "steam," which in books of this period usually meant a covered dish over simmering water rather than direct heat; that is likely why nothing scorches through two long stages. A heavy saucepan on the lowest heat works, but stir at the edges. Use a short or medium grain rice; long grain stays too separate to bind.
- The egg yolksAdded off the heat, they set as the mixture cools and again in the fryer. Stir them in quickly so they thicken rather than scramble against the hot rice.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature; hot deep fat, in the region of 375F, suits croquettes. Cooler and the crumb coating soaks; hotter and the outside colours before the inside heats through. One or two minutes to a deep gold is enough since everything inside is already cooked.
- Double coatingCrumb, then egg, then crumb again, as the recipe has it: the first crumbing helps in shaping the ball and nest, the egg-and-crumb that follows makes the frying crust. A thinner coat is more likely to split and let the rice leak. Letting the coated nests rest before frying helps the crust set.
- The jellyThe recipe says only "a cube of jelly"; currant jelly is the likeliest choice given the game pairing. It goes into the hollow after frying, as the order of the instructions shows, not before. Cut cold cubes and add them at the last moment or they melt into the hot crust.
- YieldHalf a cup of raw rice gives roughly eight to ten small croquettes, enough for four as a garnish course or as a side to roast game birds.
- The folded napkinFried dishes were commonly sent to table on a folded linen napkin, which both dressed the platter and took up stray fat. A rack and a warm dish do the same job with less laundry.
Croquettes were everywhere in American and English cookery books between about 1880 and 1930, when a household with a deep kettle of fat could turn any cold cooked starch or meat into a shaped, crumbed, individually served dish. Rice croquettes were among the cheapest of them, and the nest form here is a serving conceit rather than a culinary one: hollowing the ball turns a plain fried starch into a vessel for a bright spoonful of jelly. The pairing with game is the real logic of the dish. Tart red currant jelly has long been the conventional partner to venison, hare and wild birds in the British and Anglo-American tradition, and setting it inside a fried rice nest gave the cook a way to distribute it neatly around a platter instead of passing it separately.