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Rice Sauce
3 tablespoons rice 2 cups milk 1/2 onion 3 cloves 2 tablespoons butter Salt and pepper Wash rice, add to milk, and cook in double boiler until soft. Rub through a fine strainer, return to double boiler, add onion stuck with cloves, and cook fifteen minutes. Remove onion, add butter, salt, and pepper.
A white sauce thickened with rice rather than flour, in the manner of bread sauce. The double boiler is not optional: milk with rice in it scorches and sticks the moment it touches direct heat.
- Rice choiceUse a starchy short- or medium-grain rice rather than long-grain or parboiled. It breaks down and passes through the strainer far more readily, which is the whole point of the method.
- How long is "until soft"In a double boiler expect 45 to 60 minutes for 3 tablespoons of rice in 2 cups of milk. The rice should collapse under a spoon; underdone grains will not go through a fine strainer.
- SievingPush the hot rice and milk through a fine sieve with a ladle or stiff spatula, scraping the underside. A food mill or a brief pass with a stick blender before sieving saves considerable effort and does not harm the texture.
- Onion stuck with clovesThis is an onion clouté — half an onion with three whole cloves pushed into the cut face so they can be pulled out together. Fifteen minutes of infusion is enough; longer and the clove dominates.
- ConsistencyThe sauce thickens noticeably as it stands and again on cooling. Thin it with a little hot milk before serving if it has set past a coating consistency.
- SeasoningSalt and pepper go in only at the end here, with the butter, as the recipe directs. White pepper keeps the sauce clean-looking; a scrape of nutmeg is traditional with this family of sauces.
- Yield and servingMakes a scant 2 cups, enough for four to six servings. The recipe names no accompaniment; a sauce of this kind would suit boiled or roast poultry, game birds or poached white fish, where it does the work of a bread sauce.