White Sauce.—White sauce is sometimes required for vegetables and sometimes for puddings. In the former case some good-flavoured, uncoloured [stock] must be thickened with [white roux], and then have sufficient cream added to it to make the sauce a pure white.
When white sauce is wanted for puddings, sufficient butter sauce must be sweetened, and very slightly flavoured with nutmeg or almond, and then an equal quantity of cream added to it to make it a pure white. White sauce should not have with it any strong predominant flavour.
CHAPTER III.
SAVOURY RICE, MACARONI, OATMEAL, &c.
RICE.
Probably all persons will admit that rice is a too much neglected form of food in England. When we remember how small a quantity of rice weekly is found sufficient to keep alive millions and millions of our fellow-creatures in the East, it seems to be a matter of regret that rice as an article of food is not more used by the thousands and thousands of our fellow creatures in the East—not in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but East of Temple Bar. Rice is cheap, nourishing, easily cooked, and equally easily digested, yet that monster, custom, seems to step in and prevent the bulk of the poor availing themselves of this light and nourishing food solely for the reason that, as their grandfathers and grandmothers did not eat rice before them, they do not see any reason why they should, like the Irishman who objected to have his feet washed on the same ground. Of the different kinds of rice Carolina is the best, the largest, and the most expensive. Patna rice is almost as good; the grains are long, small, and white, and it is the best rice for curry. Madras rice is the cheapest.
Rice, pure and simple, is the food most suited for hot climates and where a natural indolence of disposition results in one’s day’s work of an ordinary Englishman being divided among twenty people. As we move towards more temperate zones it will be found the universal custom to qualify it by mixing it with some other substance; thus, though rice is largely eaten in Italy, it is almost invariably used in conjunction with Parmesan cheese. Rice contains no flesh-forming properties whatever, as it contains no nitrogen; and with all due respect to vegetarians, it will be found that as we recede from the Equator and advance towards the Poles our food must of necessity vary with the latitude, and, whereas we may start on a diet of rice, we shall be forced, sooner or later, to depend upon a diet of pemmican, or food of a similar nature.
Rice, to Boil.—The best method of boiling rice is, at any rate, a much disputed point, if not an open question. There are as many ways almost of boiling rice as dressing a salad, and each one thinks his own way the best. We will mention a few of the most simple, and will illustrate it by boiling a small quantity that can be contained in a teacup. Of course, boiling rice is very much simplified if you want some rice-water as well as rice itself. Rice-water contains a great deal of nourishment, a fact which is well illustrated by the well-known story of the black troops who served in India under Clive, who, at the siege of Arcot, told Clive, when they were short of provisions, that the water in which the rice was boiled would be sufficient for them, while the more substantial grain could be preserved for the European troops. Take a teacupful of rice and wash the rice in several waters till the water ceases to be discoloured. Now throw the rice into boiling water, say a quart; let the rice boil gently till it is tender, strain off the rice and reserve the rice-water for other purposes. The time rice will take to boil treated this way would be probably about twenty minutes, but this time would vary slightly with the quality and size of the rice.
Many years ago we watched a black man boiling rice on board a P. and O. boat (the Mizapore); he proceeded as follows:—He boiled the rice for about ten minutes, or perhaps a minute or two longer, strained it off in a sieve, and then washed the rice with cold water, and then put the rice back in the stew-pan to once more get hot and swell. Of course, this rice was being boiled for curry, and certainly the result was that each grain was beautifully separated from every other grain. We do not think, however, that this method of boiling rice is customary on all the boats of the P. and O. Company. Of course this method of boiling rice was somewhat wasteful.