No. 3216

Rice with Strawberries

Riz aux Fraises

Wash half a pound of Carolina rice; put it into a saucepan with two quarts of water and the juice of two lemons; cook till tender, keeping the grains whole, and when done drain on a sieve, pour it into a vessel and cover with a hot syrup of twenty-eight degrees, adding some orange and lemon peel; leave till cold. At the last moment lift up the rice with a skimmer and dress it in a deep dish in layers alternated with small fresh strawberries. Pour a thick syrup over the whole.

← No. 3215 Rice with Cream and Raspberries Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3217 Sauces for Cold Entremets →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives quantities for the rice and none for the syrup, which is where the dish stands or falls. Read the degree scale first, then work backwards.

Syrup at twenty-eight degreesThe degrees are Baume, read with a hydrometer, not oven degrees. Twenty-eight Baume is roughly a 50 percent sugar solution — about equal weights of sugar and water, boiled just until clear. The "thick syrup" poured over at the end is denser again; Ranhofer does not say whether it is the steeping syrup reduced further or a fresh one.
Carolina riceA long-grain white rice, at the time the premium American type grown in the Carolina lowcountry. Any good long-grain rice works; do not use arborio or another risotto rice, which is bred to break down and will give you pudding.
Keeping the grains whole is the pointTwo quarts of water to half a pound of rice means it is boiled loose, like pasta, and drained. Do not stir once it is simmering, and start testing at 12 minutes. The lemon juice is there for flavour, and is often said to help the grains hold together, though Ranhofer gives no reason for it.
Drain, then steepDraining on a sieve and then covering with hot syrup lets the grains absorb sugar without further cooking. The original says only to leave it till cold; several hours, or overnight in the refrigerator, suits a modern kitchen.
Citrus peelUse pared zest in strips, no white pith, and lift it out before dressing the dish; Ranhofer does not say when to remove it. Steeping in the hot syrup extracts the oils, and long steeping with any pith attached risks bitterness.
Lift with a skimmerThe instruction to lift the rice out with a skimmer means drain off the loose syrup so the layers hold their shape. Rice served swimming in syrup will slump in the dish.
Strawberries at the last momentSmall ripe berries, hulled and left whole, added just before serving. Sugared or sliced in advance they weep and thin the syrup.
YieldHalf a pound of dry rice plus fruit fills a deep dish for six to eight as a light dessert.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this is one of a run of cold rice entremets — the neighbouring numbers pair rice with cream and raspberries, and with sauces of their own. Rice cooked in water, candied in syrup and layered with fruit belongs to the French repertoire of riz aux fruits, a cheap grain given the treatment of a restaurant dessert by sugar and presentation rather than by dairy or eggs. The call for Carolina rice is worth noting: American long-grain rice from the Carolina and Georgia coast was the standard fine rice of nineteenth-century kitchens on both sides of the Atlantic, and the name persisted as a grade long after that particular cultivation had largely collapsed. Serving fresh strawberries uncooked, added only at the last moment, marks the dish as a seasonal one in a period when a New York kitchen's soft fruit arrived for a few weeks and was not preserved into it.