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Rice Imperatrice
Thoroughly wash three ounces of good rice in several changes of fresh water, drain it thoroughly, place it in a saucepan with one pint and a half cold milk, a saltspoon salt, one vanilla stick and five ounces of granulated sugar. Place the pan on the fire and let slowly boil for forty-five minutes, being careful to stir at the bottom with a wooden spoon frequently to prevent burning; shift the pan to the corner of the range. Cut in small dice pieces six candied cherries, two candied apricots, two candied pears, and add them to the rice with two tablespoons kirsch; mix well, then add two egg yolks and mix well again for five minutes. Remove to the table, take up the vanilla bean (wipe it and keep in fine sugar for further use), add one gill of whipped cream to the rice and gently mix. Lightly wet a quart pudding mould with cold water, drop in the rice, then set the mould in a basin with cracked ice around and let cool off for two hours. Remove, wipe the mould, unmould upon a cold dish and serve.
A classic French moulded rice dessert, written for a coal range and an ice chest. The measurements convert cleanly; the technique needs a little translation.
- Weights and the gillThree ounces of rice is about 6 tablespoons (a scant half cup); five ounces of sugar is about 3/4 cup. A gill of whipped cream is half a cup, measured after whipping.
- Use a short-grain riceArborio, Carnaroli or a pudding rice releases the starch that binds the mould. Long-grain or converted rice will stay separate and the dessert will collapse when turned out. Washing is worth doing anyway to remove loose surface starch, but do not soak.
- "Corner of the range" and "slowly boil"On a coal range the corner was the coolest spot. Read this as the barest simmer over low heat for the 45 minutes, then the lowest possible heat (the recipe keeps the pan at the corner) for the fruit and yolks, coming off the heat before the cream goes in. A heavy-bottomed pan and frequent stirring at the base are not optional at this sugar level.
- The vanilla stickA whole bean, added intact so it can be retrieved. Split it lengthwise for more flavour and fish out the halves at the end. Rinsing, drying and burying it in sugar, as directed, still works and gives you vanilla sugar.
- The egg yolksThey go into rice that has just come off the boil and are stirred for five minutes on residual heat, so they thicken without scrambling. If you want certainty about the eggs, check that the mixture holds at 160F while you stir, or use pasteurized yolks; the rice is thick enough that heat moves through it slowly.
- No gelatin hereMany versions of this dessert set the rice with gelatin and a Bavarian cream base. Filippini relies on starch, yolk and cold alone, which gives a softer unmoulding. Chill the full two hours, dip the mould briefly in warm water if it resists, and expect a dessert that slumps gently rather than standing sharp.
- ChillingA basin of cracked ice around the mould was the fastest cold available. The refrigerator does the same job; give it three hours or more, covered, since it chills less aggressively than an ice bath.
- Fruit and kirschCandied cherries, apricots and pears are all still sold. Dicing small matters for slicing. Steeping the diced fruit in the kirsch for half an hour before it joins the rice improves both.
- YieldA quart mould serves six to eight. Serve cold, on a chilled dish; a spoonful of apricot sauce or lightly sweetened red fruit purée is the usual accompaniment.
Riz à l'impératrice is generally traced to French restaurant and hotel kitchens of the Second Empire and is traditionally said to honour the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III — one of a cluster of dishes named for her in the 1850s and 1860s. It belongs to a family of moulded, iced cream desserts that flourished precisely because ice had become reliably available to professional kitchens: rice, milk and sugar, ordinary nursery food, elevated by candied fruit, kirsch and cream and turned out of a shaped mould. The book it appears in was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and this version reads like a restaurant one: quantities in ounces, instructions keyed to the hot and cool zones of a range, and a vanilla bean too valuable to throw away.