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Orange and Rice
Pare oranges, cut in halves crosswise and remove the core. and Cook the halves in a sirup made from equal parts of sugar water, to which a little lemon-juice has been added, until they mound of boiled rice are tender but not broken. Place around a mound of boiled rice and pour the sirup over the whole. Serve with plain or whipped cream, or a custard sauce.
A simple stewed-fruit pudding that depends on two things: a syrup thin enough to poach in, and orange halves lifted out before they collapse.
- The syrupEqual parts sugar and water is a standard poaching syrup; the recipe gives no quantities, so scale it to cover the fruit. The lemon juice is not decoration: the acid helps keep the sugar from crystallising as it reduces.
- Choosing the fruitUse firm, thick-skinned eating oranges rather than very juicy thin-skinned ones, which fall apart. "Pare" here means removing peel and white pith down to the flesh, not merely zesting.
- CoringCut across the equator so the segments show as a wheel, then dig out the fibrous central column with the tip of a paring knife. Any seeds come out at the same time.
- Poaching timeKeep the syrup at a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil, which will break the halves; the recipe's own test is that they be tender but not broken, yielding to a skewer while still holding their shape. In practice this is likely to be a matter of minutes rather than a long stew, but no time is given.
- The riceThe recipe asks only for plain boiled rice, shaped into a mound. Short or medium grain moulds far better than long grain.
- Reducing the syrupThe recipe simply pours the poaching syrup over the whole. If it seems thin, reducing it after the oranges come out will make it coat rather than flood the rice, though the recipe does not call for this.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities; judge the number of oranges by the size of the mound of rice. It offers plain or whipped cream, or a custard sauce, without preferring any of them.
Orange and rice belongs to a family of late-Victorian and Edwardian "fruit and rice" puddings that a household book like this one could assume every cook knew the bones of — rice boiled soft, a compote arranged over it, cream or custard poured round. The pattern is generally traced to French riz à l'impératrice and its plainer domestic cousins, stripped here of gelatine and candied fruit to something a family could make from store-cupboard sugar and whatever oranges the grocer had.