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Rice and Mushroom Mold
2-3 CUPS COOKED RICE I LARGE ONION, CHOPPED 1/4 CUP BUTTER 2-3 CUPS SLICED MUSHROOMS SALT AND PEPPER Rice may be either freshly cooked or leftover. Heat butter, slowly fry onion until tender and lightly browned. Add mushrooms and cook 5-8 minutes. (If you use dried ones they should be soaked at least 2 hours and measured after soaking.) Season and add rice. Mix well together, pack into a buttered frying pan or baking dish, and bake 1/2 hour at moderate heat. Run knife around edge of pan and turn upside down over a heated plate, using a pancake turner to dislodge any crust that sticks, so your mold will look shipshape. 2 CUPS COOKED RICE (MASHED OR GROUND) I CUP TOMATOES POI 2 CUPS COOKED MEAT (CHOPPED FINE OR GROUND) Mix together and taste. Season if necessary. Arrange in buttered dish and bake 3/4 hour.
This is an Americanization of Hawaii's national dish, made there out of taro roots and cooked outdoors as all native dishes are in the tropics. 14 POUND SALT PORK, HOPPIN' JOHN 2 CUPS DRIED FIELD PEAS, OR RED BEANS 2 CUPS COOKED RICE OR BACON 2 TABLESPOONS BUTTER SALT AND PEPPER Soak peas or beans overnight, in the morning, drain, put in kettle with pork, barely cover with water, and in spite of these being called Hoppin' Johns, do not let them hop too much but cook gently in order to keep them whole. When done there should be very little water left in them. Mix with rice, add butter, and seasonings, although salt may not be necessary, depending on the saltiness of your side meat.
A simple pan-baked rice cake that unmolds like a savory pudding. The technique matters more than the measurements: the rice has to be packed tight and the pan generously buttered, or it will come out in pieces.
- Pack it hardThis is the hinge. Press the rice mixture down firmly and evenly with the back of a spoon so the grains knit together as they bake. A loosely filled dish will collapse the moment you invert it.
- Moderate heatRead that as roughly 350-375F. Half an hour is enough to set the mold and build a thin crust on the bottom; the ingredients are already cooked.
- Butter the pan properlyButter the sides as well as the base, and let the baked mold rest three or four minutes before inverting. A cast-iron skillet gives the best crust and releases well if it is well seasoned.
- MushroomsCook them long enough to drive off their water, which may take longer than the stated 5-8 minutes with modern cultivated mushrooms in a crowded pan. Wet mushrooms mean a mold that will not hold.
- Dried mushroomsThe two-hour soak still applies for large dried caps; sliced dried mushrooms rehydrate in 20-30 minutes in hot water. Measure after soaking, as instructed, and save the strained soaking liquid for a soup rather than adding it here.
- Rice choiceLeftover rice works better than freshly cooked, since it is drier. Long-grain gives a looser mold; medium-grain rice binds noticeably better.
- YieldNo yield is given; 2-3 cups of cooked rice would probably serve about four as a side dish, or fewer as a supper with the mushroom quantity at the high end. Season assertively before baking, since rice absorbs a great deal of salt.
The name is misleading to modern ears, since no mold in the sense of a fluted tin is needed here; "mold" simply meant any dish packed into a vessel and turned out to hold its shape. A dish like this solved a practical problem: leftover rice, a pan, and whatever was on hand could be turned into something that looked composed enough to bring to the table.