Home › Desserts › Rice Imperial
Rice Imperial
A mold of rice boiled in milk, to which whipped cream and a trifle of gelatine have been added, is greatly improved by having the bottom of mold plentifully garnished with fresh cherries sugared over. Cherry syrup is served with it.
This is a sketch rather than a formula — the book gives the idea and assumes the cook knows the proportions. Riz à l'impératrice is forgiving, but a few numbers help.
- No quantities are givenThe original states no measures at all. A workable ratio for this style of dessert is about 1/2 cup short-grain rice simmered slowly in 3 cups milk with sugar until the grains collapse, then folded with roughly 1 1/2 cups whipped cream once cool.
- "A trifle of gelatine"Period gelatine came in sheets or shredded form of variable strength; modern powdered gelatine is standardised. For the quantity above, about 2 1/4 teaspoons (one envelope) bloomed in cold water and stirred into the still-warm rice is enough to hold a mold without making it bouncy.
- Rice choiceUse a short or medium grain — arborio, carnaroli, or pudding rice. Long-grain stays separate and gives a gritty set rather than a creamy one.
- Cool before foldingThe hinge of the dish. If the rice is still warm when the whipped cream goes in, the cream deflates and the gelatine sets in streaks. Cool the rice to barely tepid, stirring so it does not skin, then fold.
- Garnishing the bottom of the moldBecause the mold is inverted, the sugared cherries laid in the bottom become the top of the finished dessert. Pit them, macerate briefly in sugar, and drain well — free juice will keep that layer from setting.
- Setting and unmoldingFour hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. To turn it out, dip the mold in warm water for five to ten seconds and invert onto a chilled plate.
- Cherry syrupAt this period this could mean a bottled fruit syrup of the sort sold for soda water. Simmering the maceration juices with a little sugar until lightly thickened gives the same effect.
- YieldThe proportions above fill a mold of roughly six cups and serve six to eight.
This is the plain-English version of riz à l'impératrice, a set rice cream that ran through French restaurant and household cookery: rice cooked soft in sweetened milk, lightened with whipped cream, stiffened just enough with gelatine, and turned out of a mold with fruit. The name is traditionally attributed to the court of Napoleon III and to the Empress Eugénie, though the connection is repeated more often than it is documented. Its ingredients are the point of interest — rice, milk and a little gelatine were among the cheapest things in the larder, and the dish let a modest kitchen produce something that looked like a restaurant entremets. The instruction to garnish the bottom of the mold reflects how routine molded desserts were in that period; no one needed to be told that the bottom would end up on top.