Rice Pudding

A bare-bones baked rice pudding of the type that cooked itself while the oven was busy with something else. The proportions are sound; the omissions are the pan size, the oven temperature and the stirring.

• Oven temperature"Bake slowly" is not defined in the book; in cookery of this period a slow oven is usually reckoned at somewhere around 275-325F. Erring low is safer: too hot and the milk boils and the skin sets before the rice has softened.
• The stirring is the hingeFor the first hour and a half, stir the pudding every 20 to 30 minutes, breaking the skin back into the milk. This is what makes the finished pudding creamy rather than a layer of rice under a layer of set custard. Leave it alone for the last hour so the top browns.
• Which riceUse a short- or medium-grain white rice, unrinsed. The surface starch is what thickens the milk. Long-grain works but gives a thinner, looser pudding; converted or instant rice will not do at all.
• The ratio looks wrong and is notA quart of milk to a quarter cup of raw rice seems absurdly thin in the dish. Three hours of slow evaporation and starch release brings it to a loose custard. Do not add more rice.
• MilkWhole milk. Skim or 2% will separate and taste watery after three hours. Replacing a cup of the quart with cream gives a richer version.
• Dish and depthA 1.5- to 2-quart baking dish, buttered, filled no more than two-thirds. A wide shallow dish gives more skin and faster reduction; a deeper dish will reduce more slowly and may need longer than the three hours given.
• What the recipe assumes you'll addNothing here but milk, rice and sugar. A pinch of salt, a grating of nutmeg on top, and a strip of lemon peel or a split vanilla bean in the milk are all common additions in comparable recipes of the period, and all are left unwritten here.
• Yield and servingServes four to six. Good warm, better at room temperature; refrigerated it firms considerably and is often served cold with cream or stewed fruit.