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Compote of Fruit with Rice
Prepare one-third of the boiled rice recipe. Prepare a fruit dressing of the following ingredients: 1/4 cup pineapple juice 3/4 cup boiling water 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch Braid the cornstarch in a little cold water. Stir into the boiling water, and cook slowly an hour or more in a double boiler. Add the sugar, and the pineapple juice, and reheat. Add one-half cup of diced pineapple, eight to ten California cherries--canned or fresh--cut in small pieces, one-quarter cup diced bananas and two tablespoons lemon juice.
Malaga grapes may be used in place of the cherries if desired. Serve a spoon of steamed rice in a stemmed compote dish, and on top of it place a generous spoon of the fruit compote.
A wartime-era rice dessert built on a cornstarch fruit sauce. Two instructions need adjusting before you start: the cooking time for the starch, and the point at which the acid goes in.
- "Braid the cornstarch"Almost certainly a misprint; the sense required is blend. Stir the half tablespoon of cornstarch into a tablespoon or two of cold water to make a smooth slurry before it meets the boiling water.
- An hour in the double boilerCornstarch reaches full thickening power within two to three minutes of coming to a simmer. The long double-boiler cooking was standard advice for starch puddings of the period, meant to drive off raw starch flavour and guard against scorching on an unreliable range. Five minutes of gentle simmering is enough; an hour will only reduce the sauce and risk breaking it down.
- Why the juice goes in lastThe recipe adds the pineapple juice only after the starch has cooked, and the lemon juice later still. Acid plus prolonged heat hydrolyses cooked cornstarch and can noticeably thin the sauce. Add both off the boil, reheat gently, and do not let it bubble hard again.
- Fresh pineappleUse canned juice and canned fruit as written, or scald fresh pineapple first. Raw pineapple contains bromelain, which is harmless in a starch sauce but will turn any dairy or gelatine served alongside unpleasant.
- California cherriesCanned sweet cherries, Royal Anne or Bing. Any pitted sweet cherry works; sour pie cherries will need the sugar adjusted upward. Malaga grapes, the suggested substitute, were a large seeded table grape widely shipped at the time, the white sort greenish-amber -- any firm green grape stands in.
- SugarHalf a cup to one cup of liquid is very sweet by current taste, and the canned fruit will bring its own syrup. Start with a third of a cup and adjust after the juices go in.
- The compote dishA stemmed glass dish, roughly the size of a modern sundae or dessert coupe. Any small footed glass serves the same purpose: the point is that the white rice and the coloured fruit show through the sides.
Meatless cookbooks proliferated in the United States around the First World War, when the Food Administration urged households to observe meatless and wheatless days so that grain and meat could be shipped to Europe. Their dessert chapters lean heavily on rice, cornstarch and canned fruit -- cheap and shelf-stable, though sugar was itself a target of the conservation appeals. The specific call for "California cherries" and diced pineapple reflects how thoroughly the western canning industry had reached eastern kitchens by then: a cook in a city apartment could assemble a compote of pineapple, cherries, bananas and grapes in February without a thought. The dish itself belongs to the long European tradition of serving stewed or preserved fruit over a plain starch.