Pear Conde
1 cup rice 2 cups boiling water 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk 3 pears 1 quart raspberries or strawberries 1 cup sugar Wash the rice and cook it in the boiling water until the water is absorbed, then add the salt and milk and continue cooking until the rice is soft. Put into small molds and chill. Turn out and serve on a platter surrounded by halves of pears. Fill the pear cavities with one-half the fresh raspberries or strawberries, crushed and sweetened. Pour the remainder of the crushed, sweetened berries over the rice and pears. A spoonful of whipped cream with each serving is a great addition to this dish.
A cold molded rice pudding dressed with fruit, in the plainest American form of the French riz à la Condé. The recipe assumes you know a few things it does not say, chiefly about the rice and the pears.
- Use a starchy short-grain riceThe dish depends on grains that swell and cling once chilled, so the molds hold their shape. Arborio or pudding rice work; a long-grain rice such as basmati is more likely to unmold in a heap.
- The liquid runs shortThe liquid may run short -- One cup of rice to two cups water plus one cup milk is on the lean side for a rice that must finish thoroughly soft. Keep another half cup of warm milk beside the pan and add it if the grains are still chalky when the liquid has gone.
- Salt goes in late for a reasonSalt goes in late -- The recipe holds the salt back until the milk stage rather than salting the cooking water; follow that order, and a teaspoon is reasonable for the volume against the sweetened fruit.
- The pears are not specified as cookedRipe raw halves are edible but will taste thin against the sweetened berries. Peeled halves poached ten to fifteen minutes in a light sugar syrup, then chilled, are closer to the classical version.
- Molds and unmoldingThe recipe says only "small molds"; custard cups, ramekins or teacups of about half a cup each suit the quantity. Rinse them with cold water before filling, or brush lightly with a neutral oil, and chill well; run a thin knife around the edge and invert onto the platter.
- The rice needs its own sweeteningThe cup of sugar is all for the fruit, which leaves the rice bland at the center of a sweet plate. Two or three tablespoons stirred into the rice with the milk, and a split vanilla bean or a teaspoon of extract, brings it into line without touching the fruit.
- Crush the berries close to servingSugared raspberries or strawberries throw juice quickly and go slack after an hour or two. Crush and sweeten them shortly before the plate goes out so the sauce is bright rather than syrupy.
- YieldSix servings, each a small mold with half a pear and a share of the berries.