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Rice Farci
1 cup rice 1 pint of tomatoes chopped 1 teaspoon of salt 1 saltspoon of paprika 1 cup chopped celery 1/2 cup chopped olives 1 tablespoon minced onion 1/2 cup chopped peppers Rub the tomato through a sieve, put it in a saucepan for ten minutes, then add the rice, chopped celery, seasoning, and the other ingredients, and boil for five minutes. Then put it on the side of the range and simmer for one hour until the ingredients are thoroughly blended.
A tomato-braised rice pilaf from the meat-substitute chapter, cooked entirely on the stovetop. The method is sound, but two of the measurements need translating and the liquid needs watching.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. With a full teaspoon of salt already in the pot, the paprika is there for colour and warmth rather than heat.
- A pint of tomatoesTwo cups. These may have been canned or fresh; the recipe does not say. Rubbing them through a sieve leaves rather less than two cups of purée once the skins and seeds are discarded.
- The riceRaw white rice. Two cups of tomato purée is barely enough liquid for a cup of rice once evaporation starts; keep a cup of water or vegetable stock at hand and add it in stages, or the bottom will scorch before the hour is out.
- "The side of the range"On a coal or wood range, the cooler edge of the top plate. On a modern hob that is the lowest setting with a lid on.
- The hour of simmeringWhite rice is done in about twenty minutes. The long simmer here is for flavour rather than doneness, so the pot must be covered and the heat genuinely low; check at thirty minutes and add liquid rather than let it dry out.
- Peppers and olives"Chopped peppers" here most likely means sweet green bell peppers. The olives were probably green olives in brine; add them in the last fifteen minutes if you want them to keep any bite, as an hour of simmering flattens them.
- YieldServes about four as a main course, six as a side. It reheats well with a splash of water.
Farci is French for stuffed, and the name is borrowed loosely here — nothing is actually stuffed, but the rice is packed with vegetables in the manner of a stuffing mixture. Meatless cookbooks of the early twentieth century leaned heavily on rice and tomatoes to fill the place on the plate that meat had occupied, and this recipe is a plain example of the strategy: bulk from a starch, savour from long-cooked tomato, and interest from the sharp, salty notes of olive, celery and onion.