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Rice and Apple Dumplings
1197. Boil half a pound of rice, tied up loosely in a cloth, until the grains will stick together; then surround some apples previously pared with a layer of this; tie up in a cloth and boil for half an hour. When, as is often the case, apples can be had for little or nothing, this dish costs only the price of the rice and a little sugar or treacle to be eaten with it.
A Victorian cloth-boiled dumpling in which sticky rice replaces suet pastry. Everything depends on the rice being cooked to the point where it clings without collapsing into porridge.
- The hinge: rice textureBoil the rice only until the grains adhere when pressed together — a short, plump rice will do this in roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Overcooked rice will slide off the apple in the water; undercooked rice will not seal, and the dumpling opens as it boils.
- Weights and yieldHalf a pound of rice is about 1 1/4 cups uncooked. The recipe specifies only 'some apples'; that quantity of rice should jacket three or four medium ones, reckoning one dumpling per person.
- Tie the rice loosely — and mean itRice triples in bulk as it absorbs water, so the first cloth must be tied with plenty of slack or the grains cook unevenly and the cloth splits. A large square of muslin or a double layer of cheesecloth works; scald it and flour the inside lightly before use.
- Core the applesThe recipe says pared only, but a cooking apple left whole with its core will hold hard fibres and pips through the boil. Core it and fill the cavity with sugar or a knob of butter.
- Individual clothsWrap each jacketed apple in its own floured cloth rather than one large bundle. Tied singly, they hold their shape and cook through in the stated half hour in gently simmering water — a hard rolling boil batters them apart.
- TreacleBritish treacle here means a dark sugar syrup; golden syrup or light molasses both serve. Warm it before pouring so it runs rather than sits.
- A modern substitute for the clothEach dumpling can be wrapped in parchment and then foil, or set in a buttered pudding basin covered with pleated parchment, and steamed rather than immersed. This avoids leakage, though the result will differ somewhat from one boiled in water.