No. 2977

Rice a la Manhattan-Lean

Riz au Maigre a la Manhattan

Chop up two ounces of onion; fry it in butter, add a pound of rice and heat both together. When exceedingly hot moisten to three times its height (the rice one-third and the moistening two-thirds) with broth (No. 194a); let boil and cook in a slack oven for twenty minutes. Incorporate with the rice, when done, six ounces of grated parmesan. Pour two thirds of this into a casserole or vegetable dish; make a hole in the center and fill it with shelled crawfish tails or shrimps and poached oysters, after removing their muscles, or else with mussels and minced mushroons; pour over lean veloute sauce (No. 416) reduced with essence of mushrooms (No. 392) and chicken glaze (No. 398); mix well and cover the whole with the remainder of the rice; put in a hot oven for fifteen minutes and serve.

← No. 2976 Ravioles a la Bellini Macaroni, Rice & Farinaceous No. 2978 Rice, Oriental Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's riz au maigre is a baked rice with a shellfish core, built from three cross-referenced preparations. The whole thing hinges on the moistening ratio and on not overcooking the shellfish before it goes into a 15-minute oven.

The moistening ratio"Moisten to three times its height" means the rice occupies one-third of the depth in the pan and liquid the other two-thirds — liquid at twice the volume of the rice. A pound of rice is roughly 2 1/2 cups, so about 5 cups of broth.
Slack oven, hot ovenThe book gives no temperatures. In period usage a slack oven is roughly 250-300F and a hot oven roughly 400-450F. The rice cooks twenty minutes at the lower heat; the final fifteen minutes are only to heat through and set the top — the rice is already cooked.
CasseroleIn 1894 this means the serving vessel, a deep round earthenware or silver dish, not the modern baked-casserole sense. Any deep oven-to-table dish works.
What "au maigre" meansLean, that is, meatless for fast days; the recipe itself specifies a lean velouté, and the cross-referenced broth No. 194a would be expected to be a lean one. The chicken glaze called for at the end sits oddly with that; substitute a reduced fish or shellfish glaze if you want the dish to be genuinely maigre.
Poached oysters"Removing their muscles" means trimming the tough adductor. Poach them in their own liquor only until the edges ruffle, 30 seconds to a minute, then lift them out. They get a further 15 minutes in a hot oven inside the rice, and oysters poached to firmness first will come out like erasers.
Crawfish and shrimpShelled crawfish tails should be cooked and cooled; shrimp likewise. Both are heated, not cooked, in the assembly. Mussels should be steamed open and pulled from the shells, with their beards removed.
Parmesan quantitySix ounces of grated parmesan to a pound of dry rice is generous but correct — the cheese is the binder that lets the rice hold its dome over the filling. Grate it finely and stir it in off the heat.
YieldProbably six to eight as a course, though the book gives no yield. It does not reheat well; the shellfish suffer on the second pass.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) was Charles Ranhofer's summation of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is built like a reference work: nearly every preparation points to numbered sauces, broths and glazes elsewhere in the book, so no single recipe stands alone. The au maigre designation belongs to the older French kitchen calendar, where Fridays, Lent and the vigils of feast days required dishes made without meat stock — hence a rice moistened with fish or vegetable broth and stuffed with shellfish rather than sweetbreads or chicken. The Manhattan name is of a piece with Ranhofer's Lobster à la Newberg and his many dishes à la New York; Delmonico's often attached local names to French constructions. The technique itself — rice fried in butter with onion, then wetted and finished in the oven — is the standard nineteenth-century French pilaf.