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Rice Fan-Tan
1/2 cup rice 2 cups milk 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons sugar 1 egg 1/2 cup candied fruits Egg and crums Powdered sugar Cook rice in milk until very soft. Stir in salt, sugar and well-beaten egg, and remove at once from the fire. Mix in assorted candied fruits--cherries, apricots and pineapple--and turn into a shallow, well-oiled pan to cool. When firm, cut into strips about one and one-half inches wide and three inches long, dip in egg and bread-crums and brown delicately on both sides in butter or butter substitute. Drain, dust with powdered sugar and serve hot.
A sweet fried rice croquette, cut in bars rather than rolled. The whole dish depends on the rice mixture setting firm enough to slice.
- The hinge: cook the rice down dryHalf a cup of rice to two cups of milk should be simmered gently, uncovered and stirred often, until it is thick enough to hold a spoon upright. If any free milk remains the strips will not hold their shape when cut.
- Egg off the heatStir the beaten egg in and pull the pan immediately, as written. Held over heat the egg curdles into visible threads and the smooth body is lost.
- Chilling time"When firm" means set hard enough to slice cleanly. The recipe says only "a shallow, well-oiled pan"; spread the mixture thin enough to give strips of some depth and let it cool until thoroughly firm -- chilling helps, and a barely cooled pan will slump under the knife.
- CrumsPlain dry breadcrumbs, finely rolled. Panko works but reads coarser than the "delicate" browning intended here.
- Butter substituteIn American cookbooks of this period the phrase means margarine or a vegetable shortening. Butter browns better; keep the heat at medium so the sugar in the strips does not scorch before the coating colors.
- Candied fruitCandied cherries, apricot and pineapple are still sold at holiday baking counters. Chop to pea size and pat dry, or wet fruit will make pockets that break the strips at the cut.
- Frying and drainingShallow-fry in a skillet rather than deep fat, turning once. Drain on a rack, not paper, so the underside stays crisp, and dust with confectioners' sugar just before serving.
- YieldThe recipe gives no pan size; from these quantities expect roughly ten to twelve strips, enough for about four as a light entree or dessert course.
"Fan-tan" was a fashionable name in early twentieth-century American cookery, attached to dishes cut, folded or fanned into strips -- fan-tan rolls, made of stacked ribbons of dough, are the survivor of the fad; the name is often linked to the Chinese gambling game, though that connection is traditional rather than documented. The dish itself belongs to a long European line of fried sweet rice: rice cooked in milk, set stiff, sliced, breaded and browned, the same logic as a sweet rice croquette. Its place in the "Entrees and Made-Over Dishes" chapter is a reminder that in this period a sweet, starchy fried course could sit in the middle of the meal rather than at the end, and the section leans on thrift: milk, rice and one egg, dressed up with a handful of candied fruit.