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Rice Croustades
Cook one cup of well washed rice in white stock instead of water. When thoroughly cooked, and cool, mix with a thick white sauce and spread in a shallow pan to the depth of about two inches. Cover with oiled paper and place weights on top so that the mixture may become very compact when cold. When perfectly firm, cut in circles, make a cavity in the center of each, dip the case thus made in bread crumbs, then in egg, and again in crumbs, and fry in deep fat. These rice cases or croustades, filled with creamed fish or chicken, make delicious entrées. BOUCHÉES-Pastry shells or cases, filled with creamed meat or game are called bouchées and are much in vogue for entrées. They provide an excellent way of utilizing left-overs of chicken, sweetbreads, fish, etc. Paper cases, bought at the confectioner's, may also be used instead of the pastry shells.
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A garnish-chapter recipe that is really a technique: cooked rice bound with thick bechamel, pressed until sliceable, then cut into cups, breaded and deep fried. The hinge is compaction — rice that has not been weighted and thoroughly chilled will collapse in the fat.
- White stockA pale, unroasted veal or chicken stock. Any light chicken stock works; avoid dark or heavily reduced stock, which will tint the cases brown and fight the cream filling.
- Choose a starchy riceA short- or medium-grain rice (arborio, carnaroli, Calrose) binds more readily. The original names no variety, and the thick white sauce plus the weighting is doing much of the work, so long-grain will hold less well but need not fail.
- The sauce is unmeasuredThe original gives no quantity for the thick white sauce. For one cup of raw rice, roughly 3/4 to 1 cup of a very stiff bechamel (about 3 tablespoons each butter and flour to one cup of milk) gives a mixture that holds together without being pasty. Note that the recipe directs mixing when the rice is thoroughly cooked and cool.
- Oiled paper and weightsParchment brushed with oil, or lightly oiled plastic wrap, then a second pan or a board with cans on it. Chill at least four hours, preferably overnight -- cold is what makes it cut cleanly.
- Cutting the casesA 2 to 2 1/2 inch round cutter for the outside, a smaller cutter or a melon baller for the cavity. Leave at least 1/2 inch of wall and floor. Return the cut cases to the refrigerator while you set up the breading.
- Breading orderThe book's crumb-egg-crumb sequence puts a dry coat where flour would normally go, giving the egg something to grip on a moist surface. It works, but the cases are fragile -- handle them by the rim and chill the breaded cases 20 minutes before frying so the coating sets.
- FryingDeep fat at 375F, two or three cases at a time, about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes until deep gold. The interior is already cooked, so you are only crisping the shell; longer frying steams the rice inside and softens the walls. Drain rim-down on paper.
- Yield and servingOne cup of raw rice, pressed to the two inches the recipe specifies, makes only about five or six 2 1/2 inch croustades, allowing for re-pressed scraps. Fill just before serving with hot creamed chicken, fish, or mushrooms -- a filled case left standing goes soft within minutes. Two per person as an entree course.
Croustade comes into English from the French, ultimately from the word for crust, and in nineteenth-century service it meant any edible container: fried bread, pastry, duchesse potato, or, as here, pressed rice. Such cases belonged to the logic of the long formal dinner, where an entree was expected to arrive shaped and self-contained rather than spooned onto a plate, and where a kitchen needed a respectable way to bring yesterday's chicken or sweetbreads back to the table. The appended note on bouchees (literally "mouthfuls") and on paper cases bought from the confectioner shows the same thinking scaled to whatever the household could manage. Butterick, better known for dress patterns, also published cook books.