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Southern Way of Boiling Rice
Mrs. Stotesbury.
Pick over the rice; rinse it in cold water until perfectly clean, then put it in a pot of boiling water, allowing a quart of water to less than a teacup of rice; boil it hard seventeen minutes; drain off the water very close, and let it steam fifteen minutes with the lid off. When carefully done in this way, each kernel of rice stands out by itself, while it is perfectly tender. The water in which the rice has been boiled makes, it is said, good starch for muslin, if boiled a few minutes by itself.
This is the boil-and-drain method, the opposite of the absorption cooking most modern kitchens default to, and it still works beautifully with long-grain rice. A few of the measures and timings need translating.
- The hinge: drain hard, then dryBoth stages matter, but the uncovered steaming is what dries the grain surfaces. Draining "very close" means getting the water off thoroughly, then leaving the rice in the hot pot uncovered so residual steam escapes rather than condensing back into the grains.
- "A teacup" of riceA teacup in period receipts is reckoned anywhere from a gill (4 fl oz) to about 6 fl oz, so "less than a teacup" is probably somewhere around 1/2 to 3/4 cup of dry rice against a quart of water. Either way the ratio is deliberately generous: the rice is cooked like pasta and the surplus water thrown away.
- Which riceThis assumes long-grain white rice of the Carolina type. It suits basmati and ordinary long grain. Do not use arborio, sushi rice or any short-grain variety, where the surface starch is the point.
- Seventeen minutesSuits long grain in a hard rolling boil, but start testing at 12 minutes; the grain should be tender through with no chalky core.
- The fifteen-minute steamDo this off direct heat or over the barest flame, uncovered, or the bottom layer scorches on a modern thin-based pan. A gas or induction burner delivers heat far faster than the wood- or coal-fired range of the period.
- Rinsing and enriched riceRinsing until the water runs clear washes away the vitamin coating on enriched American rice. It costs nothing in flavour but does cost the fortification, which is worth knowing if rice is a staple in your house.
- YieldAbout 2 to 2 1/2 cups cooked rice, enough as a side for three or four.
- The starch waterThe claim is sound in principle: the drained water is dilute rice starch and was genuinely used for stiffening muslin. It will not keep, so use it the same day or pour it away.
Boiling rice in abundant water and draining it is the older English and Anglo-Indian practice, and nineteenth-century American cookbooks often attach the label "Southern" or "Carolina" to such methods, the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia being the American centre of good rice. Carolina Gold and its relatives dominated the domestic market before Louisiana and Texas milling overtook it, and the boast that "each kernel stands out by itself" is the recipe's own measure of success. The book was assembled from contributed receipts credited by name, which is why this arrives as Mrs. Stotesbury's method rather than an anonymous instruction, and the closing note about starch for muslin is characteristic of the period's reluctance to let even cooking water go unused.