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Rice Blanc Mange
2 1/2 ounces ground rice 1 bay leaf 1/2 pint milk 1 tablespoon sugar Take enough milk from the pint to mix the rice smoothly. Put the remainder in an enameled saucepan with the bay leaf, and let it remain until the milk is nicely flavored. If lemon flavor is preferred, use the thin rind of half a lemon. Remove the flavoring, and add the sugar, and pour the mixed rice in, stirring as the milk is poured in.
Return the mixture to a saucepan, and boil until the rice leaves the spoon easily, stirring the whole time. Pour into a damp mold, and let it stand in a cool place, for three or four hours before turning out. Serve stewed fruit with the blanc mange.
A plain rice-flour mould that depends almost entirely on getting the starch fully cooked and the milk properly infused. Two of the quantities need sorting out before you start.
- The milk quantity contradicts itselfThe list says 1/2 pint but the method speaks of taking milk "from the pint." With 2 1/2 oz (about 70 g) of ground rice, half a pint would give a very stiff, pasty result; a full pint (16 fl oz US, 20 fl oz if the book is British) is more likely what was meant and should mould well. Start with the full pint.
- Ground riceThis is rice flour, though the old article was milled a little coarser than the fine white rice flour sold for baking. Either works; the coarser grind gives a slightly grainy, more traditional texture.
- Enameled saucepanThe instruction is about avoiding a metallic taste from bare iron or unlined copper and about preventing scorching. Any heavy-bottomed nonreactive pan does the job.
- Infusing the bayBring the milk barely to a simmer with the bay leaf or lemon rind, then take it off the heat and leave it 15-20 minutes covered. Boiling the leaf hard makes the milk taste medicinal rather than faintly aromatic.
- Lemon rind, not zest"Thin rind" means pared with a peeler in strips, with none of the white pith, so it can be lifted out whole. Grated zest cannot be strained back out and will speckle the mould.
- "Boil until the rice leaves the spoon easily"The mixture must actually come to a boil and be held there a few minutes, stirring constantly, or the starch will not gelatinise fully and the mould will weep. Expect 5-8 minutes of thick, sputtering bubbling.
- A damp mouldRinse the mould in cold water and do not dry it. The film of water is what lets the set blancmange drop out; a greased or dry mould will fight you.
- Setting and yieldThree to four hours in a cold place is right; refrigeration works but cover the surface with plastic to stop a skin forming. On the full pint this makes about three to four small servings.
- The stewed fruit is not optionalThe stewed fruit is directed, not optional -- the pudding itself is barely sweetened, one tablespoon of sugar to the half pint listed (less still if you take the full pint). A compote of something sharp -- plums, rhubarb, gooseberries, dried apricots -- supplies the acidity and most of the sweetness.
Blancmange descends from the medieval blanc manger, a dish of pounded almonds, rice and shredded white poultry that was neither sweet nor savoury by modern reckoning; as sugar grew cheaper the meat dropped away and what remained was a white milk pudding thickened with rice, cornflour or isinglass. This version is the thrifty English form: no gelatine, no eggs, no cream, just milk stiffened with ground rice. Flavouring milk with a bay leaf rather than vanilla is an older English habit, found in Victorian and Edwardian custards and rice puddings, and it cost next to nothing.