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Rice with Prune Fluff
1/2 cup rice 2 1/4 cups dried prunes 2 tablespoons sugar 3/4 cup whipping cream 2/3 cup water 1/3 cup cream 2/3 cup milk Wash the prunes thoroughly; three-quarters pound will make the required amount. Pour over them boiling water, and let stand for a few minutes, and then soak in cold water for twenty-four to thirty-six hours or until soft. Remove the seeds, rub the prunes through a colander. Steam the rice in two-thirds of a cup of water until the water is absorbed. Then add the cream and the hot milk, and steam until tender. Add the sugar to the prune puree. Place a spoonful of the steamed rice on a small plate. On top of this and beside it, place a generous spoonful of the fluff.
A two-part dessert: milk-and-cream rice on one side of the plate, sweetened prune puree on the other. The written method has one clear gap, and the prune soak belongs to a fruit trade that no longer exists.
- The missing stepTwo creams are listed, but only one is used in the text: the 1/3 cup goes into the rice, and the 3/4 cup of whipping cream is never mentioned again. It is meant to be whipped and folded into the prune puree ffluff" is the whole point of the name. Fold it in at the last moment so it does not weep.
- Prunes todayThe 24-to-36-hour cold soak assumes hard, stone-in, sun-dried plums. Modern packaged prunes are pitted and partly rehydrated; covering them with boiling water and letting them stand 20 to 30 minutes, or a brief simmer, brings them to puree consistency. Three-quarters of a pound is the amount, as the recipe says.
- Rubbing through a colanderA colander here means a fine sieve or puree strainer. A food processor does the same work faster, but pulse rather than run it, since overworked prune puree turns gluey.
- Steaming the rice"Steam" here may well mean a covered double boiler rather than a steamer basket. Expect 35 to 45 minutes total once the milk and cream go in; the rice should be soft and the mixture loose, closer to a thick pudding than to separate grains.
- Rice varietyUse a short or medium grain rice. Long grain will not release enough starch to hold the cream, and the dish will read as buttered rice with fruit beside it.
- SugarTwo tablespoons for three-quarters of a pound of prunes is restrained by current taste, and dried fruit varies widely in sweetness. Taste the puree and adjust; a little lemon juice sharpens it, which the original does not call for but the dish takes well.
- Yield and servingProbably about four servings, though the recipe gives no yield. Both elements can be made a day ahead, but whip and fold the cream just before plating, and let the rice come back to room temperature or warm it gently, as it stiffens in the refrigerator.
Desserts built on milk, cream, rice and dried fruit were filling, cheap, and used no meat. Prunes were an obvious fruit for the purpose, being shelf-stable and sweet enough to need little sugar, and by the early twentieth century they were produced in large quantity in California and Oregon. The long soak in the instructions is a mark of its date: before dried fruit was routinely pitted and treated to stay pliable, a cook had to plan a day and a half ahead to get a prune soft enough to push through a sieve.