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Casserole de Pommes au Riz
(A Mould of Apples and Rice.) Ingredients.
Four ounces of Rice.
One pound and a half of cooking Apples (Wellingtons or Newtons).
A pint and a half of Milk, Two ounces of Cake-crumbs.
One ounce of Butter.
Three ounces of castor Sugar.
Half a teaspoonful of Salt.
One ounce of chopped Almonds.
One ounce of Candied Orange Peel.
One Yolk and one whole Egg.
One ounce and a half of Glacé Cherries.
Peel and core the apples; put them in a sautépan with two ounces of sugar. Put the lid on, and place in a hot oven until tender; then add the cake-crumbs to the apples. Wash the rice in cold water; drain well, and put it into a stewpan with the milk (which must be hot); cook slowly until the rice is almost done. Remove it from the stove and add the orange peel finely chopped, the cherries cut into small dice, the almonds chopped and pounded, the butter, the remaining ounce of sugar, and the salt. Add the eggs, and cook well together for a few minutes.
Have ready a round timbale mould; butter it well, sprinkle it with flour, and line the bottom and sides thickly with the prepared rice. Place the apples in the centre (leaving out one for garnish), and cover with rice until full. Cover with a buttered paper, stand it in a deep stewpan half filled with boiling water, and steam it for an hour. Turn out on a hot dish, place the apple put aside on the top, ornament with a few cherries, and serve with Sauce au Liqueur.
A steamed rice timbale with a hidden centre of baked apple — Edwardian in its scale of work but straightforward once the terms are decoded. The critical point is the temperature of the rice when the eggs go in.
- "Casserole" here means the mouldIn this period a casserole de riz is a rice case shaped in a mould, not a baked dish. The recipe specifies only a "round timbale mould": a plain, straight-sided or slightly tapered mould; a charlotte mould or a deep cake tin works. Judge the size by the volume of rice and apple rather than a stated capacity.
- Oven for the applesThe book gives no temperatures; "hot oven" in books of this vintage is generally taken as somewhere in the upper part of the range, roughly 400-450F. The apples are covered and cook in their own juice with the sugar, so aim for around 400-425F for 20-30 minutes until collapsing.
- The applesWellington was a stock English cooking apple of the day, and the American Newtown Pippin was widely available in Britain by import. Bramley gives the same fluffy break-down; Granny Smith holds more shape and needs a few extra minutes. One and a half pounds is about three large apples.
- RiceUse short-grain pudding rice or arborio, not long grain — the starch is what makes the lining hold together when turned out. Four ounces is a scant two-thirds cup dry, and a pint and a half (imperial, 30 fl oz) of milk is about three and three-quarter US cups.
- Cake-crumbs and castor sugarCake-crumbs are dry crumbs from plain sponge or Madeira cake, used here to absorb apple juice so the filling does not soak the rice wall. Castor sugar is superfine sugar; granulated dissolves fine in both cooked applications.
- Adding the eggs"Cook well together for a few minutes" is the risky line. Take the rice off the heat, let it drop below a simmer, beat the whole egg and yolk with a spoonful of the hot rice first, then stir the rest in over low heat — a hard boil at this stage curdles the egg and the lining turns grainy.
- SteamingButtered paper over the top, mould set in a deep stewpan half filled with boiling water as the recipe directs, water kept at a bare simmer for an hour. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates; a skewer should come out clean and the mould should feel set at the edges.
- Turning outLet it stand five to ten minutes off the heat before inverting, or the still-loose rice slumps. Run a thin knife round the rim first.
- Sauce au Liqueur and yieldThe recipe does not define the sauce. It is usually taken to be a sweet sauce of egg yolks, sugar and syrup whisked warm and flavoured with kirsch, maraschino or rum; a warm apricot sauce with liqueur is the easy modern stand-in. The mould serves six to eight.
Rice moulds of this kind belong to the ornamental end of late-Victorian and Edwardian dessert cookery, where a nursery pudding was dressed up with candied peel, glacé cherries and pounded almonds and given a French name to earn a place on a dinner menu. The technique — lining a buttered, floured mould with a stiff starch mixture, filling the cavity, sealing it over and steaming the whole in a water bath — is the same one used for savoury timbales of rice or semolina in the professional kitchens of the period, and it is why the recipe insists the rice be cooked only "almost done": it finishes setting in the mould. The named varieties are a useful marker of date. Wellington (also sold as Dumelow's Seedling) and the American Newtown Pippin were both stock market apples in Britain before Bramley's Seedling took over the cooking trade in the twentieth century, and either could be expected on hand in late winter.