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Mange
1/3 cup sugar 1 teaspoon flavoring 6 tablespoons ground rice 1 quart milk Soak the rice for twenty minutes; stir into the milk; boil and stir until it thickens, using a double boiler to prevent sticking. Add sugar and flavoring; pour into wet molds and stand away to cool. Serve with sugar and cream.
A plain rice blancmange, thickened with rice flour rather than gelatin or cornstarch. The whole thing hinges on cooking the starch long enough that it loses its raw taste and sets firm.
- Ground rice is rice flourGround rice is essentially rice flour, traditionally a slightly coarser grind -- buy rice flour (not sweet/glutinous rice flour, which behaves differently). Six tablespoons to a quart of milk is a lean proportion and may set only softly, though the original clearly expects it to unmold; eight to nine tablespoons would give something firmer if the smaller amount proves too loose.
- "Soak the rice" means in liquid"Soak the rice" most likely means slaking the rice flour in a little cold milk or water taken from the quart before it goes into the hot milk. Twenty minutes of soaking hydrates the starch and helps prevent lumps; whisk it smooth again just before adding.
- Boil, then move to the double boilerThe wording is loose: a double boiler will not bring milk to a true rolling boil. Bring the milk and slurry to a boil over direct heat while stirring constantly, then transfer to a double boiler and cook gently until well thickened. The long gentle cooking is what removes the chalky raw-starch flavor.
- FlavoringA teaspoon of vanilla, almond extract, lemon extract, or rosewater, all period-appropriate. Add it off the heat so it does not cook off. A strip of lemon peel or a piece of cinnamon steeped in the milk and then removed works better still.
- Wet moldsRinse the molds with cold water and leave them wet rather than draining or drying them. The film of water keeps the pudding from gripping the metal and lets it slide out. Custard cups, a loaf pan, or a single quart mold all work.
- "Stand away to cool"Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate at least three hours, or overnight for a firm unmolding. The original was written for a cool pantry; a quart of milk pudding left on the counter all afternoon is not something to repeat.
- YieldAbout one quart, or six servings. Serve cold with cream and sugar as directed, or with stewed fruit, jam, or a spoonful of preserves.
"Mange" is a shortened form of blancmange, French for "white food," and the name is older than the pudding here by several centuries. The medieval dish was a stiff white pottage of pounded almonds, rice and often shredded capon, served at banquets as much for its color as its flavor; by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it had shed the meat and become a sweet, set with isinglass, gelatin, arrowroot or ground rice. Rice-thickened versions like this one were among the cheapest, since rice flour cost little, kept well, and needed no gelatin. Cookbooks of this era also recommended such puddings for invalids and children on the theory that a bland milk-and-starch dish was easy on the stomach.