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Casserole of Rice and Meat
Line a mould, slightly greased, with steamed rice. Fill the centre with two cups cold, finely chopped, cooked mutton, highly seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, celery salt, onion juice and lemon juice; then add one-fourth cup cracker crumbs, one egg slightly beaten, and enough hot stock or water to moisten. Cover meat with rice, cover rice with buttered paper to keep out moisture while steaming, and steam forty-five minutes. Serve on a platter surrounded with Tomato Sauce. Veal may be used in place of mutton.
A steamed rice-lined mould of leftover roast lamb — Fannie Farmer's answer to the Monday joint. The hinge is the rice: it must be cooked soft and sticky enough to hold a wall, or the whole thing collapses when turned out.
- "Casserole" here means the shape, not the potIn this period the word was still used for dishes moulded in a shell or crust — here a rice case — as well as for the vessel itself; Farmer's usage is the moulded sense. A 1- to 1.5-quart charlotte mould, pudding basin or straight-sided metal bowl suits the quantities.
- Steamed rice, not fluffy riceUse a short- or medium-grain rice cooked wet and left to steam until quite soft and tacky. Long-grain rice cooked to separate grains will not adhere to the mould walls. Press the lining about half an inch thick and pack it firmly.
- Onion juiceGrate an onion on the fine side of a box grater and use the liquid that collects, about a teaspoon or two. It seasons without leaving raw pieces in the filling.
- Buttered paperButtered parchment, then a lid or a sheet of foil crimped over the rim. The paper's job is to stop condensation from the steamer dripping in and waterlogging the rice.
- Setting up the steamerStand the mould on a rack in a deep pot with two inches of simmering water, cover, and keep the water at a bare simmer for the full forty-five minutes. Top up with boiling water if it runs low. The mixture is already cooked; the time is for setting the egg and heating through.
- Cracker crumbsPlain soda crackers or saltines, crushed fine; if using salted crackers, allow for it when seasoning. They and the egg bind the chopped meat so it slices. Fresh breadcrumbs work but absorb more liquid, so add stock cautiously.
- Season harder than feels rightCold cooked mutton is bland and the rice carries no seasoning beyond whatever is in its cooking water. Salt that water and taste the meat mixture before it goes in — "highly seasoned" is not rhetoric here.
- Unmoulding and yieldLet it stand five minutes off the heat, run a thin knife round the edge, then invert onto a warm platter. Two cups of meat plus the rice case will serve about three or four as a main course; pour the tomato sauce around rather than over, so the rice wall stays visible.
This is thrift dressed for the dining room. Cold roast mutton was a standard leftover, and the nineteenth-century cook's difficulty was less making it edible than making it look like a second dinner rather than a second helping. Moulded and steamed entrées — timbales, aspics, rice borders, chartreuses — were a common solution, drawn from French practice and simplified for the American middle-class kitchen that the Boston Cooking School was training. Mutton is the period marker: mature sheep were still common in American markets into the early twentieth century, and its strong flavour may well account for a seasoning list running to cayenne, celery salt, onion juice and lemon. The note that veal may be substituted, and the tomato sauce poured around the base, are of a piece with the book's habit of interchangeable cold meats and a short list of sauces to carry them.