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Creole Rice
From 2 large ripe red peppers remove the veins and seeds and chop fine; peel I large white onion and chop fine with 1/4 of a pound of raw, lean ham. In a kettle melt 2 tablespoonfuls of lard or butter, and when hot add the peppers, onion and ham and cook, stirring occasionally for ten minutes. Add 1 cupful of well-washed and drained rice and cook for five minutes longer, then add 3 cupfuls of strong beef soup or broth, cover and cook slowly for half an hour.
Skin and cut fine 4 large tomatoes (or take about 1/3 of a can), add them to the rice with' 1 teaspoonful of salt. Cover, draw aside where the cooking will be slow and the rice will not stick to the bottom of the kettle. When it is tender and has absorbed all the broth, stir in with a fork 1 tablespoonful of butter and let stand for five minutes longer.
A pilaf-method rice dish: aromatics and ham in fat, rice toasted briefly, then broth absorbed slowly. Two things need attention before you start — the liquid ratio and the meaning of "red peppers."
- Liquid is generous by modern standardsThree cups of broth plus four chopped tomatoes to one cup of rice is far more than today's long-grain rice will absorb without turning to mush. Start with 2 cups of broth, add the tomatoes as directed, and add more liquid only if the pan goes dry before the grains are tender.
- "Large ripe red peppers"In an American cookbook of this period this most likely means sweet red peppers rather than chiles; two large ones give roughly 2 cups chopped. Heat in such recipes is usually carried by cayenne, so if you want it hotter that is the safer route than swapping in hot peppers wholesale.
- Raw lean hamNot deli ham. Use a piece of uncooked cured ham — country ham, a slice off a raw gammon, or pancetta at a pinch. Cooked ham will do but gives less depth, and salt-cured ham means holding back on the teaspoon of salt until you taste at the end.
- KettleA heavy lidded pot on the stovetop, not a tea kettle and not an oven dish. A Dutch oven or wide saucepan with a tight lid is right; a wide base helps the rice cook evenly.
- "Draw aside where the cooking will be slow"On a coal range you slid the pot to a cooler part of the top. On a gas or electric hob, this is the lowest setting with the lid on, or a heat diffuser. Do not stir during this stage — stirring is what makes the grains break and stick.
- TimingHalf an hour covered before the tomatoes go in is long for modern rice. Check at 15 minutes; the grains should still have a firm core when the tomatoes are added, since they finish cooking in the tomato liquid.
- Canned tomatoesPeriod cans ran larger than today's, so a third of one is roughly a cup; take about 8 oz from a standard 14.5 oz can, drained of its thinnest juice if you have reduced the broth.
- YieldFour servings as a side, two or three as a main. The final tablespoon of butter stirred in with a fork is a finishing step for gloss and separation; a fork rather than a spoon keeps the grains whole.
Creole cookery — the Franco-Spanish-African kitchen of New Orleans — gave American cookbooks a whole family of rice dishes built on onion, pepper and cured pork, of which this is a plain example, closely related to jambalaya without the shrimp or chicken. Rice was a Louisiana staple crop and a cheap one, which is why a dish like this earns its place: a cup of rice, a quarter pound of ham and a few vegetables stretch into a full supper. The instruction to use "strong beef soup or broth" reflects a kitchen where a stockpot was always going and broth cost nothing extra; the word Creole on a recipe title in this era was arguably as much a promise of pepper and tomato as of any specific regional pedigree.