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Rice En Casserole
2 cups chopped cold meat 3 eggs 1/3 cup milk 2 cups boiled rice Celery salt 2 tablespoons butter or other fat 2 tablespoons tomato catchup Salt Season the meat and pile it in the center of an oiled casserole. Mix the eggs, milk, rice, fat and seasonings. Pour over the meat, cover, and bake (350 degrees F.) for twenty minutes.
A leftover-meat supper bound with a thin rice custard. The point to watch is the egg: it must set, not scramble, and twenty minutes is the minimum rather than a guarantee.
- Doneness over timingThe recipe specifies cold meat, and twenty minutes at 350F is a short bake for a set custard; expect longer if the rice is also straight from the refrigerator. Judge by a knife inserted at the edge coming out clean, or 160F at the center.
- "Casserole" hereIn this book the word means the covered ovenproof dish itself — earthenware or the then-new heatproof glass. Any 1 1/2-quart lidded baking dish works; foil is a fair substitute for a missing lid.
- CatchupTomato catchup of the period was often thinner, sharper and more spiced than modern ketchup, though bottled brands were already sweetening. If today's product reads too sweet, a spoonful of tomato paste plus a dash of vinegar comes closer.
- Celery salt and saltNo quantities are given. Half a teaspoon of salt and a quarter teaspoon of celery salt suits two cups of rice and two of meat, but taste the rice mixture before the eggs go in and adjust then.
- The meatAny cooked meat serves — roast beef, lamb, ham, chicken. The recipe calls for it chopped and seasoned before being piled in the center.
- "Oiled" dishButter or a neutral oil, brushed over the interior. Egg sticks hard to bare earthenware, so be thorough up the sides.
- YieldServes four as a main course with a green vegetable, six if it is one dish among several.