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Richelieu Rice
Put three soup-spoonfuls of Carolina rice to swell in a little water, with a pat of butter. When the rise has absorbed all the water, add a pint of milk, sugar to sweeten, a few raisins, some chopped orange-peel, and some crystallized cherries, or any other preserved fruit. Put all on the fire, and when the mixture is cooked the rice ought to be creamy. Add the yolk of an egg, stir it well, and pour all into a mold. Put it to cool. Turn it out, and serve it with the following sauce, which must be poured on the shape. A pint of milk, sugar, and vanilla; let it boil. Stir a soup-spoonful of cornflour in water till it is smooth, mix it with the boiling milk, let it boil while stirring it for a few minutes, take it from the fire, add the yolk of an egg, and pour it on the rice shape. Serve when cold.
A molded rice pudding with a vanilla cornstarch sauce, written in the shorthand a Belgian housewife would have taken for granted. The quantities are loose but workable once the spoon measures are pinned down.
- Soup-spoonfulA tablespoon. Three tablespoons of raw rice to a pint of milk is a very thin ratio by modern pudding standards; expect a soft, spoonable set rather than a firm shape. If you want it to stand up when turned out, closer to 1/3 cup of rice per pint is realistic.
- Which pintThe book was published in London in 1915 from Belgian practice, so "a pint" may mean the 20 fl oz imperial pint rather than 16 fl oz. Start with 16 fl oz and add more milk as the rice drinks it up.
- Carolina riceIn this period the name meant plain white long-grain rice, not a branded product. A medium-grain rice such as arborio or a pudding rice gives the creaminess the recipe asks for more reliably.
- CornflourCornstarch, not the finely milled corn flour sold in American baking aisles. Slake it in cold water first, as directed, or it will lump in the hot milk.
- The hinge: the yolkThe sauce yolk is explicitly added off the fire; the recipe does not say the same for the rice, but treat it the same way. If the pan is still on the burner or very hot, the yolk scrambles and the smooth texture is lost. Pull the pan, let it stop bubbling for a minute, then beat the yolk in fast.
- Crystallized cherriesCandied or glacé cherries. Chopped candied orange peel is the same thing sold today for fruitcake; rinse and dry it if it is heavily syrupy, or the pudding turns cloying.
- Cooking timeSimmer the rice in milk gently for 25 to 35 minutes, stirring often, until the grains are soft and suspended in a thick cream. The bottom scorches easily at this milk-to-rice ratio.
- Molding and turning outRinse the mold with cold water before filling and chill at least four hours, preferably overnight. Dip the base briefly in hot water to release it.
- YieldServes four as written, six if you increase the rice.
The Belgian Cook Book was compiled in 1915 by Mrs. Brian Luck from recipes carried out of Belgium by refugees after the German invasion, and sold to raise relief money — which explains why its dishes are so often domestic, thrifty and remembered rather than transcribed from a professional kitchen. "Richelieu" is one of a long family of nineteenth-century French garnish names borrowed for their grandeur; in the classical repertoire it is a named garnish for meats with a fairly settled composition, and it has no established application to a rice dessert, so quite what it is doing here is unclear — in practice it amounts to little more than candied fruit and a vanilla sauce over what is otherwise plain rice pudding. Molded rice puddings turned out of a shape and sauced were standard bourgeois dessert practice across France and Belgium in this period, close cousins of the riz à l'impératrice of restaurant menus; the rice, milk, sugar and a spoonful of preserved fruit were all things a household might still assemble when better ingredients had become scarce.