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Casserole of Rice and Veal
The casserole of rice and veal makes a very appetizing as well as a sightly dish.
Butter a melon mold with a brush, going into every crevice. Line the mold about three-quarters of an inch or one inch deep with the hot steamed rice. Prepare a mixture to fill the cavity, using two cups of finely chopped veal, seasoned very highly with salt, pepper, cayenne, celery salt, onion juice and lemon juice. Then add one-fourth cup of cracker crumbs, one egg slightly beaten, and enough hot stock to make it stick together. The mixture must not be too moist or too dry.
Fill in the center of the mold with this, leaving about one inch at the top not filled. Into that put rice, smoothing it down, then put on the buttered lid of the mold and let it steam for forty-five minutes. Turn it out on a platter, garnish with parsley, and pour about it tomato sauce. This dish is very nice made with cold mutton and is an excellent method for using any meat left over; lamb, chicken, beef or turkey will do. See Page XXII.
A steamed mold rather than an oven dish: in 1900 "casserole" often meant a shaped, molded preparation, and here the cooking is done entirely by steam. Everything depends on the rice lining holding together when the mold is inverted.
- The hinge: use short-grain rice, cooked stickyThe rice wall is structural, and long-grain rice steamed to separate grains will collapse the moment you turn the mold out. Use a short- or medium-grain rice cooked soft and slightly wet so it packs and clings, and press it firmly into the buttered mold rather than spooning it in loosely.
- Melon moldA ribbed, lidded tin mold of roughly 1 to 1.5 quarts, once standard equipment and now mostly antique-shop stock. A pudding basin with a tight lid, a metal charlotte mold covered with foil and tied, or even a straight-sided steel bowl works; grease it thoroughly and get butter into every groove or the pattern will tear away.
- How much riceThe original gives none. A 1-inch lining plus the cap for a 1.5-quart mold takes about 4 to 5 cups cooked rice, or roughly 1.5 cups raw.
- The meat should already be cookedThe meat is probably already cooked -- The closing line shows the dish was at least partly intended for leftovers ('very nice made with cold mutton ... an excellent method for using any meat left over'), and finely chopped cooked meat is the likeliest reading for the veal too, though the recipe does not say so outright. Forty-five minutes of gentle steam sets the egg and heats the mold through, but it is not a reliable cook time for raw ground meat in the center of a dense mold. If starting from raw, cook and cool the meat first.
- Setting up the steamerStand the mold on a rack in a deep pot with water coming a third of the way up the sides, cover the pot, and keep the water at a bare simmer for 45 minutes. A hard boil rattles the mold and drives water past the lid; top up with boiling water if the level drops.
- Seasoning and moisture"Seasoned very highly" is meant literally, since steaming mutes flavor and the rice is bland. Onion juice means the liquid pressed or grated from a raw onion, and a scant teaspoon is plenty. Add stock a tablespoon at a time until the filling holds a shape when squeezed but leaves no puddle.
- Turning outLet the mold rest 5 to 10 minutes off the heat before inverting; the egg firms as it cools slightly and the shape holds far better. Loosen the edge with a thin knife, invert onto a warmed platter, and lift the mold straight up.
- YieldWith 2 cups of meat and a 1.5-quart mold, this serves 4 to 6. Tomato sauce is not optional in practice, as the dish is dry without it.
Molded, steamed dishes like this one were the respectable Victorian and Edwardian answer to the cold joint sitting in the larder: they turned yesterday's roast into something that could be carried to the table whole and looked deliberate. The melon mold, with its ribbed, tapering dome, was one of a whole family of tinned-copper and tinned-steel forms sold for aspics, ice creams, rice borders and puddings. The word casserole here carries its older French sense of a shaped preparation, often of rice, enclosing a filling; the American habit of calling any baked one-dish supper a casserole came later. Veal appears often in American cookbooks of this period, and its mildness may explain the aggressive list of seasonings, cayenne, celery salt, onion juice and lemon, that the recipe insists on. The closing sentence, listing mutton, lamb, chicken, beef and turkey, points to the purpose of the entry: a template for economy, dressed up well enough to serve to guests.