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Baked Rice
2 cups boiled rice 1 cup grated cheese 1 tablespoon butter 1/2 cup milk Salt and red pepper Bread crumbs Arrange the rice in a baking dish in layers, covering each with cheese, a little milk, butter, salt and red pepper. Spread bread crumbs over all and bake in a moderate oven until the crumbs are browned.
English dairy cheese is preferred for this, although American cheese will do.
The loose-leaf format has scrambled this page: the ingredient list has been split around the method, and the cheese and pecans appear in one place but not the other. The dish itself is straightforward — a layered rice-and-cheese gratin — but you have to reassemble it before you start.
- Cook the rice firstThe recipe assumes cooked rice, as the method gives no cooking liquid or time for raw grain. Half a cup of raw rice yields roughly a cup and a half cooked, which is what fills a small baking dish in layers.
- The missing cheese quantityCheese is called for in the method but never measured. About 4 oz grated, distributed over two or three layers, is a reasonable reconstruction for a dish this size.
- The pecansHalf a cup of pecans is listed but never mentioned in the instructions. They most likely belong chopped into the layers with the cheese. Toast them lightly first.
- Moderate oven350F. The dish is fully cooked going in, so you are only melting the cheese, setting the milk and colouring the crumbs — 25 to 30 minutes, with a minute or two under the broiler if the top is still pale.
- English dairy cheeseThis means a firm farmhouse-style Cheddar, not a mild block. "American cheese" at this period meant domestic Cheddar, not the processed slice, which did not yet exist in its modern form. A sharp Cheddar satisfies both instructions.
- Red pepperCayenne, used sparingly as a seasoning rather than a heat source — an eighth of a teaspoon for the whole dish. It is there to lift the cheese, a standard trick in period cheese cookery.
- The milkHalf a cup over a small dish of rice will not make it soupy; it keeps the layers from drying. Dot the butter with the cheese rather than pouring it melted, so it does not run to the bottom.
- YieldTwo as a main course, four as a side.
Rice appears in this section because American cookery around 1900 was working out what a meatless main course looked like, and the answer was usually cheese, nuts and a starch bound together and browned. The framing reflects what was probably a real domestic pressure — meat was among the most expensive items in the household budget, and the economical cook needed dishes that would satisfy at the centre of the table without it. The preference for English dairy cheese over American is likely a note about quality rather than nationality, and in a dish this plain the cheese is doing nearly all the work. The pecan, meanwhile, was valued for a richness that reads as meaty in a way walnuts and almonds do not.