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Steamed Rice Pudding
1½ teaspoons salt 8 cups cold water Cook in steamer until water is absorbed and each kernel is separated. The time depends upon the age of the rice. 1 cup rice 6 cups milk 1 teaspoon salt
The page as printed has two ingredient lists run together, and no quantity of rice for the first one. Read it as a method for plain steamed rice followed by the pudding proper: 1 cup rice, 6 cups milk, 1 teaspoon salt, steamed until the grains swell and the milk is absorbed into a thick cream.
- The scrambled text"1½ teaspoons salt, 8 cups cold water" — appears to belong to a separate plain steamed-rice entry, and the rice quantity for it has dropped out. The pudding list itself looks complete apart from sugar and flavouring, which are simply not given.
- Ratio to trustOne cup of raw rice to six cups of milk is a pudding ratio, not a rice-cooking ratio. It looks alarmingly thin at the start and thickens only in the last half hour, so resist adding more rice.
- Steamer, not ovenA period steamer is a perforated pan set over boiling water, or a covered bowl standing in a kettle. A double boiler over gently simmering water does the same job. Keep the water below the pudding at a bare simmer; direct heat scorches milk and rice very quickly.
- TimingExpect 1½ to 2½ hours. The original's note that "the time depends upon the age of the rice" is accurate — older, drier rice drinks more liquid and takes longer. Stir once or twice early on, then leave it.
- Which riceUse a medium- or short-grain white rice such as arborio, carnaroli or pudding rice for creaminess. Long-grain and modern parboiled rices stay separate and give a grainier pudding; brown rice would need considerably longer.
- SaltA full teaspoon in six cups of milk reads high to modern palates, particularly for a sweet dish. Half a teaspoon is closer to current taste.
- Sweetening and flavourAdd about ⅓ to ½ cup sugar, and vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon or grated lemon rind, in the last twenty minutes. Sugar added at the start slows the softening of the grain.
- YieldServes six as written, and it thickens considerably as it cools. Loosen with a little warm milk if it sets too stiff.
Lowney's Cook Book was compiled by Maria Willett Howard and issued by the Walter M. Lowney Company, the Boston chocolate manufacturer, as a general household cookbook that happened to place its employer's cocoa and chocolate front and centre. Alongside the chocolate recipes it carries standard American household puddings, set down in the fewest possible words. Steamed rice pudding is a plain form of the dish — rice, milk and salt cooked over water for hours until the starch breaks down, with sugar and spice treated as optional additions rather than part of the formula. It was a dish for a coal range that was already lit, where a pan could sit over steam all afternoon at no extra cost in fuel.