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Rice Cakes
Stir 1 beaten egg and 1 tablespoon milk into 2 cups leftover rice. Mold into thick flat cakes between the hands, and fry brown on both sides. Eat with or without syrup.
A camp-cook's way of turning yesterday's pot of rice into breakfast. The recipe assumes a greased skillet over a fire and gives no quantities for fat or heat, so a few specifics help.
- The binder is barely enoughThe binder is sparse -- one egg and a tablespoon of milk hold best with short-grain, sticky or slightly overcooked rice. With loose long-grain rice the cakes may break when turned; a second egg, or a tablespoon of flour, makes them easier to handle.
- Cold rice, not warmChill the rice thoroughly before mixing. Warm rice smears rather than molds, and the cakes lose their shape in the pan.
- Pan and fatUse a heavy skillet with a thin film of bacon fat, butter or oil over medium heat, about 350F if you are on a griddle with a thermometer. Too hot and the outside colors before the egg sets; too cool and the cakes drink fat.
- Leave them aloneThe recipe asks for thick cakes, so press them no thinner than about half an inch and let them sit undisturbed three to four minutes a side. A crust has to form before the cake can be lifted in one piece.
- Leftover rice keeps badlyCooked rice left at room temperature can grow Bacillus cereus, which produces a toxin that frying does not destroy. Use rice that went into the refrigerator or cooler within an hour or two of cooking and has been held cold since.
- YieldTwo cups of rice makes six to eight cakes, enough for two or three people. Syrup is the period suggestion; they also take well to salt, pepper and a fried egg.
Rice cakes of this kind belong to a broad family of nineteenth- and twentieth-century leftover cookery -- the same instinct that produced bubble and squeak, hash and bread pudding, where a starch already cooked is bound with egg and refried. Rice was a natural candidate because it travels dry, keeps well, and is often cooked in more quantity than a meal requires. The instruction to "mold into thick flat cakes between the hands" calls for no special equipment: no ring molds, no griddle temperature, just hands and a skillet. The optional syrup points to a breakfast dish in the American pancake tradition rather than a savory side.