Rice Fritters
INGREDIENTS for fritters for 5 or 6 persons.-6 oz. of rice, 1 quart of milk, 3 oz. of sugar, 1 oz. of fresh butter, 6 oz. of orange marmalade, 4 eggs.
AVERAGE COST, 1s. 3d.
Swell the rice in the milk, with the sugar and butter, over a slow fire until it is perfectly tender, which will be in about 3/4 hour. When the rice is done, strain away the milk, should there be any left, and mix with it the marmalade and well-beaten eggs; stir the whole over the fire until the eggs are set; then spread the mixture on a dish to the thickness of about 1/1 inch, or rather thicker. When it is perfectly cold, cut it into long strips, dip them in a batter the same as for apple fritters, and fry them a nice brown. Dish them on a white d'oyley, strew sifted sugar over, and serve quickly.
TIME.-About hour to swell the rice; from 7 to 10 minutes to fry the fritters.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A Victorian way of using up sweetened rice: a stiff rice-and-marmalade paste, chilled, cut into fingers, battered and fried. The whole thing hinges on getting the set slab cold and firm before it goes anywhere near the fat.
- Quantities6 oz rice is roughly three-quarters to a cup of short-grain pudding rice; the quart here is an imperial one, about 1.1 litres, so allow a generous litre of milk. Serves five or six as a dessert.
- Choose the right riceUse a short or round pudding rice, not long-grain. It needs to break down and release starch so the cooled mixture holds together when cut.
- Swelling the riceAbout 45 minutes over a very low heat, stirring often, until the grains collapse. A heavy pan and a diffuser prevent the milk catching, which is the usual failure here.
- Setting the eggsOnce the marmalade and beaten eggs go in, keep the heat gentle and stir constantly. The mixture should thicken to a stiff paste, not scramble; take it off the moment it holds a track from the spoon.
- The slabSpread about half an inch thick on an oiled tray or a lined tin and refrigerate several hours, or overnight. Warm or soft rice paste will disintegrate in the batter and again in the fat.
- FryingDeep fat at 350-360F, a few fingers at a time so the temperature holds. Seven to ten minutes as given is long for something already cooked; three to four minutes to a good brown is enough.
- ServingThe 'white d'oyley' is a small ornamental linen or paper mat laid on the serving dish; a rack and kitchen paper will keep the fritters from sitting in their own fat. Dust with sifted sugar and serve at once, as they soften quickly.
Rice appeared in the Victorian kitchen in many guises, among them a nursery and invalid food, boiled soft in milk, and cooks looked for ways to make it presentable at table. Frying a cold, set mixture into fritters was a standard trick of the period, applied to semolina, ground rice and polenta as readily as to rice itself; the Italian and French repertoires offer a family resemblance in crema fritta and rice croquettes. The orange marmalade is the English touch, and it points to a household with a stock of preserves on hand: Dundee-style marmalade was by then manufactured commercially, though many households still made their own. The average cost of 1s. 3d. was the kind of figure Mrs Beeton's readers used to compare dishes at a glance.