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Potage Crême de Riz
Ingredients.
Two quarts of White Stock.
Four tablespoonfuls of ground Rice.
Half a pint of Cream.
One teaspoonful of Sugar.
Salt to taste.
Put the stock, which must be white and freed from fat, in a stewpan; when nearly boiling, stir in the ground rice, or better still, French flour of rice, which is smoother; stir well, and let it boil for ten minutes. Add the seasoning but not any pepper; then, when boiled sufficiently, add the cream, and strain before serving.
A plain white cream soup of the kind that opened a formal Victorian dinner. Everything depends on the stock being genuinely pale and grease-free, and on the rice being fully cooked before the cream goes in.
- White stockThis means a light stock made from veal bones, or veal and chicken, with no browning and no dark vegetables. Two imperial quarts is about 2.3 litres. Skim it cold so the fat lifts off in a sheet, and strain through muslin before you begin.
- Ground rice and flour of riceGround rice is coarse rice meal; the "French flour of rice" the recipe prefers is what we now sell as rice flour. Rice flour gives the smoother result promised here. Slake either one in a little cold stock first or it will set in lumps the moment it hits hot liquid.
- Ten minutes is not enoughTen minutes may not be enough -- coarser ground rice in particular can keep a raw, chalky edge. Give it longer at a bare simmer if it still tastes floury, stirring often, and taste before you decide it is done.
- Cream measureHalf an imperial pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. Use heavy or whipping cream, and warm it slightly before adding so the soup does not drop out of temperature.
- Do not boil after the creamBring it back only to steaming. A boil in a lightly thickened cream soup will make it look grainy and can throw a skin.
- No pepper, deliberatelyNo pepper -- the ban most likely concerns appearance rather than flavour: dark specks show in a white soup. A very small amount of white pepper, or a blade of mace infused in the stock, would not show.
- The sugarOne teaspoon in two quarts is a seasoning, not a sweetener. It rounds the veal stock and is easy to leave out if your stock is already sweet with carrot or onion.
- Consistency and yieldFour tablespoons of rice to two quarts gives a very light soup, barely more than napping consistency; add another spoonful if you want body. It serves eight to ten as a first course.
Potage crème de riz belongs to the long list of pale, delicately thickened cream soups that French-trained cooks kept on hand for the first course of a formal dinner, where a strong colour or an assertive flavour would have upset the sequence of the meal. Rice flour was one of the thickeners favoured for such soups because it carries little taste of its own and needs no roux, so nothing browns. The recipe's preference for French flour of rice points to a difference in grind, the imported flour being the finer of the two. The refusal of pepper is the most telling instruction on the page, a reminder that a white soup was judged first with the eye.