Steamed Rice
1 cup rice 2 3/4 to 3 1/4 cups boiling water (according to age of rice) 1 teaspoon salt Put salt and water in top of double boiler, place on range, and add gradually well-washed rice, stirring with a fork to prevent adhering to boiler. Boil five minutes, cover, place over under part double boiler, and steam forty-five minutes, or until kernels are soft; uncover, that steam may escape. When rice is steamed for a simple dessert, use one-half quantity of water given in recipe, and steam until rice has absorbed water; then add scalded milk for remaining liquid.
To wash rice. Put rice in strainer, place strainer over bowl nearly full of cold water; rub rice between hands, lift strainer from bowl, and change water. Repeat process three or four times, until water is quite clear.
A double-boiler method from the era when rice was sold loose and might be a year or more out of the mill. The technique still works, but modern packaged long-grain rice needs less water and far less time.
- Water ratioThe wide range, 2 3/4 to 3 1/4 cups per cup of rice, reflects rice that had dried out in the sack. Current long-grain white rice takes about 1 3/4 to 2 cups water per cup of rice; at the ratios given here it will be sodden unless you drain it.
- TimingForty-five minutes over steam suited hard, aged rice. Modern white rice is done in 15 to 20 minutes absorbed over low heat; brown rice is the grain that still wants 40 to 45 minutes.
- The double boilerThe point of the upper pan is that rice cannot scorch or catch over indirect heat, which matters on a wood or coal range with no low setting. On a gas or induction hob a heavy lidded saucepan on the lowest flame does the same job.
- Uncovering at the endThis is the instruction worth keeping. Lifting the lid lets residual steam off so the surface grains dry and separate rather than clumping. Five minutes off the heat, lid ajar, then fork through.
- Washing the riceRinsing removes loose surface starch and gives cleaner, less sticky grains. Note that rice sold as enriched in the United States carries added vitamins in a coating that washing removes; the package will usually say not to rinse.
- SaltOne teaspoon to a cup of dry rice sits at the upper end of the usual modern range, and you may want less if the rice is going into a dessert.
- The dessert variationSteaming in half the water first, then finishing in scalded milk, keeps the milk from catching and breaking. Scalded means heated to just below the boil, around 180F, with bubbles at the edge of the pan.
- YieldOne cup of raw rice gives roughly three cups cooked, enough for four as a side dish.
Rice in this period was treated as a cereal in the same category as oatmeal and hominy. The double boiler was a widely used piece of turn-of-the-century American kitchen equipment, favoured by the cooking-school movement for ranges whose heat could not be turned down, and it was applied to much that might scorch. The instruction to gauge water by the age of the rice is a reminder that grain was often bought from an open barrel or bin at the grocer rather than in a dated package, and that a cook was expected to judge her ingredients rather than trust a printed number.