Pear Conde
1 cup rice
3 pears
2 cups boiling water
1 quart raspberries or straw- 1 teaspoon salt berries
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
Wash the rice and cook it in the boiling water until the water is absorbed, then add the salt and milk and continue cooking until the rice is soft. Put into small molds and chill. Turn out and serve on a platter surrounded by halves of pears. Fill the pear cavities with one-half the fresh raspberries or strawberries, crushed and sweetened. Pour the remainder of the crushed, sweetened berries over the rice and pears. A spoonful of whipped cream with each serving is a great addition to this dish.
A classic French rice condé, written with the brevity of a book that assumed you already knew how molded rice puddings behave. Two things in the ingredient list never reappear in the method, so read the notes before you start.
- The sugar is for the berriesThe cup of sugar is listed among the ingredients but never mentioned in the instructions. It belongs to the crushed berries, which are called "sweetened" twice. Add it to taste rather than all at once; a quart of ripe strawberries needs far less than a quart of sharp early raspberries.
- The pears need cookingThe recipe simply says "halves of pears," which most likely meant either canned pears in syrup or fresh ones poached and cooled. Raw pear halves will not hold a filling as well and taste thin beside the rice. Poach peeled, cored halves in light syrup until just tender, then chill.
- Rice varietyUse a short or medium grain rice. Long grain and converted rice release less starch to bind the pudding, and the molds may not hold their shape as well when turned out.
- Liquid and donenessTwo cups boiling water to one cup rice, then a cup of milk added later, gives a stiff pudding rather than a creamy one. That stiffness is the point, since nothing else holds the shape. If the rice is still firm when the milk has gone, add milk a few tablespoons at a time.
- Molding and unmoldingRinse the small molds in cold water or brush them lightly with a neutral oil before filling, pack the hot rice in firmly, and chill at least three hours. Dip the base briefly in warm water to loosen. Custard cups or ramekins work as well as figured molds.
- YieldAbout six servings, one small mold and one pear half each; the recipe's three pears give six halves.
- Serving temperatureEverything should be cold, including the pears and the berry sauce. Crush and sweeten the berries no more than an hour ahead so they keep their color and do not turn to syrup.
Condé is a name from French classical cookery: a molded sweetened rice, chilled, and arranged with poached fruit and a fruit sauce, generally traced to the kitchens of the princely house of Condé and codified in nineteenth-century French practice, where riz à la Condé appears alongside the apricot and pear versions still found in old restaurant repertories. Its arrival in an American household manual like Butterick's shows how thoroughly the vocabulary of the French dessert course had been absorbed into ordinary middle-class cooking by the early 1900s: rice, milk and sugar were cheap, and a dish with a French name could be built from a cup of rice and whatever fruit the season offered. The pairing with raspberries or strawberries also fixes it as a summer dish, made when soft fruit was plentiful.