Steamed Rice
2 cups boiling water. 2 teaspoons salt. 1 cup rice.
Pick and wash well. Put rice and water into vessel, cook until rice is soft, about one hour.
A double-boiler method from the cereals chapter, where rice was treated like oatmeal or hominy rather than a side dish. The proportions and timing both need adjusting for modern rice.
- "Vessel" means the double boiler"Vessel" may mean the double boiler -- The recipe says only "vessel," but the title "steamed" rather than "boiled," and the practice of the period for cereals, suggest the upper pan of a double boiler set over simmering water. Indirect heat would help explain how an hour of cooking is possible without scorching.
- The hour is a function of the method, not the riceThe hour may be a function of the method rather than the rice -- White rice in direct contact with a burner is done in 15 to 18 minutes at a 2:1 water ratio, then rested off heat for 10. Over a water bath the grains absorb more slowly and an hour is plausible; check at 40 minutes.
- SaltTwo teaspoons for one cup of dry rice is aggressive by current taste. Half a teaspoon to one teaspoon suits most palates, especially if the rice is going alongside a seasoned dish.
- Why rice was picked and washedEarly twentieth-century rice was sorted by hand for stones, hulls and chaff, and polished rice was often coated with glucose and talc. Modern packaged rice needs no picking; rinsing is optional and mainly a texture choice, removing surface starch for separate grains.
- Do not wash enriched riceMost American long-grain rice is now dusted with added vitamins and iron. Rinsing washes that coating down the drain, which is a fair trade for texture but worth knowing.
- Water ratioTwo parts water to one part rice is still standard for long-grain white. Brown rice needs roughly 2.5 parts water and a much longer time.
- YieldOne cup of dry rice gives about three cups cooked, enough for four servings as a side or three as a cereal course with milk and sugar.
Mary A. Wilson wrote for the Philadelphia Public Ledger and produced her cook book in 1920, in the immediate aftermath of the wartime food-conservation campaigns she had helped publicize. Rice sits in the cereals chapter alongside oatmeal, cornmeal mush and hominy, a placement that suggests it was often treated as a breakfast grain, served hot with milk, or a plain starch stretched to feed a table. The double-boiler technique is commonly associated with cereals of the period, since long, gentle, unattended cooking suited coal ranges and the stiff, thoroughly softened texture then thought proper. Rice cooked to remain firm and separate is often said to have been more a Southern and Creole preference than a national one, and the very long cooking here reflects a household expectation that a cereal should be soft.