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Rice and Cheese No. 3
4 ounces of rice 2 ounces of butter 3 ounces of cheese 1 1/2 pints milk Wash the rice, and cook with the milk in a double saucepan for three hours, then add the cut-up cheese, butter and seasoning. When the cheese is melted, turn the mixture out into a pie dish, and serve with sippets of toast arranged around it.
A plain milk-cooked rice thickened with cheese, from the era when a double boiler stood on the stove all afternoon. The weights convert cleanly; the three-hour cooking time is the part to think about.
- Weights to volume4 oz rice is a generous 1/2 cup; 2 oz butter is 4 tablespoons; 3 oz cheese is about 3/4 cup grated. 1 1/2 pints is 24 fl oz (3 cups) by US measure, or 30 fl oz if the book's pint is Imperial -- a quarter more liquid.
- Double saucepanA double boiler, or a heatproof bowl over simmering water. The point is that milk and rice scorch on direct heat, so the gentle indirect cooking is not fussiness here it is the only reason this works unattended.
- Three hours is not a typoOver water the mixture never exceeds about 200F, so the rice softens slowly and the starch thickens the milk into something close to a pudding. Cooking it in 25 minutes in a heavy pan on low heat gives a similar dish but a looser, less silky one; stir often if you go that route.
- The cheese must not boilAdd it off the heat, or with the pan barely warm, and stir only until it melts. Held hot after melting, a hard cheese breaks and weeps fat, which is what turns this dish greasy.
- Which cheeseIf the book is English, as the Imperial measures and "sippets" suggest, a firm cheese such as Cheddar or Cheshire is the likely intention. Grate rather than "cut-up" -- it melts into the rice instead of leaving pockets.
- SeasoningThe recipe leaves it open: salt, white pepper, and a scrape of nutmeg or a little dry mustard are period-appropriate and much needed, since three cups of milk absorb a lot of salt.
- SippetsNarrow fingers or small triangles of toast, crusts off. Arrange them at the last moment or they soften.
- YieldServes three as a light main course, four as a side. It sets firm as it cools and can be spread in a dish, topped with crumbs and browned under the grill the next day.
Rice cooked in milk and finished with cheese belongs to a whole family of "meat substitutes" built on the nutritional idea that cheese and milk could supply the protein a meatless meal lacked. Books of this kind written for vegetarians, for Lenten and Friday cooking, and for households economising often gave several numbered versions of the same pairing, the differences lying in proportions and in whether the dish is baked, boiled or gratinated. The long double-boiler cooking reflects a kitchen with a range kept alight all day, where three hours of unattended gentle heat cost nothing. Sippets small pieces of toast, a word generally said to have been in English use since the sixteenth century here the garnish, serving the practical purpose of adding texture to a dish that otherwise has none.