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Pepper and Salt (Well wash the rice and boil it)
Well wash the rice and boil it in the stock until quite tender; then pack it down in a sautépan and press it till quite cold. Now cut out patty cases of the rice with a pastry cutter, making a lid with a smaller cutter. Egg and bread-crumb these cassolettes, fry them a nice brown in very hot fat. Lift the lid and fill the cases with any savoury mixture you like, replace the lid, and serve with fried parsley.
A late-Victorian savoury course dish: rice cooked in stock, pressed solid, then cut into little cases and deep-fried. The original gives no quantities at all, so the method matters more than any list.
- The hinge: press it hard, chill it coldThe rice must be compacted under real weight (a tray or plate with tins on top) and refrigerated until firm right through. Warm or loosely packed rice will crumble at the cutter and disintegrate in the fat.
- Choice of riceUse a short or medium-grain rice — pudding rice, arborio or Calrose. The starch is what glues the cake together; long-grain basmati will not hold a shape. Cook it well past al dente, as the recipe says, until quite tender.
- Proportions to work fromAbout 300 g (1½ cups) rice to 900 ml (scant 4 cups) well-flavoured stock, cooked until the liquid is absorbed, gives a slab roughly 20 cm square at 2 cm thick — enough for 8 to 10 cases.
- "Sautépan" here means a shallow, straight-sided panIt is being used as a mould, not for cooking. Any straight-sided tin or dish of similar depth works; line it with cling film or parchment so the slab lifts out whole.
- CassolettesThe word means small cases or pots. Cut discs with a plain cutter, cut a smaller disc part-way into each to mark the lid, and lift the lid off after frying — that is what "lift the lid" refers to. Scoop out a little rice to make the hollow.
- Egg and bread-crumbFlour lightly first, then beaten egg, then fine dry crumbs; panko is coarser than intended but works. Chill the coated cases again for 20 minutes so the crust sets.
- "Very hot fat"175–185°C (350–365°F) in a deep pan. Cooler fat soaks in and the cases collapse; much hotter and the crumb browns before the inside heats. Two or three minutes is enough — everything inside is already cooked.
- Fillings and fried parsleyAny thick savoury mixture: creamed mushrooms, chicken or ham in béchamel, curried shrimp. It must be thick enough not to soak the case. The parsley garnish is dry sprigs dropped into the same fat for a few seconds — it spits, so use a lid or spider.
- TimingFill at the last moment and serve at once. Cases stuffed in advance go soft.
Savouries were a distinct course in high-Victorian and Edwardian dining, served after the sweet and before dessert fruit, and books of "high class cookery" carry pages of them: small, hot, sharply seasoned, meant to close the meal rather than fill it. The device here — a starch cooked until sticky, pressed cold, cut and fried into an edible container — belongs to the same family as the French croustade and the Italian supplì. The heading "Pepper and Salt" may belong to a neighbouring entry rather than to this one; the recipe itself is otherwise unnamed.