’Tis a troublesome dish to prepare; but, judging from the flattering communications received by the writer, the lieges would seem to like it. And the mixture had better be cooked in a double or porridge-saucepan, to prevent any “catching.”
Already, in one of the breakfast chapters, has the subject of the preparation of rice, to be served with curry, been touched upon; but there will be no harm done in giving the directions again.
Rice for Curry
Soak a sufficiency of rice in cold water until by repeated strainings all the dirt is separated from it. Then put the rice into boiling water, and let it “gallop” for nine or ten minutes—no longer. Strain the water off through a colander, and dash a little cold water over the rice to separate the grains. Put in a hot dish, and serve immediately.
A simple enough recipe, surely? So let us hear no more complaints of stodgy, clammy, “puddingy” rice. Most of the cookery books give far more elaborate directions, but the above is the method usually pursued by the poor brown heathen himself.
Soyer’s recipe resembles the above; but, after draining the water from the cooked rice, it is replaced in the saucepan, the interior of which has in the interim been anointed with butter. The saucepan is then placed either near the fire (not on it), or in a slow oven, for the rice to swell.
Another way:
After washing the rice, throw it into plenty of boiling water—in the proportion of six pints of water to one pound of rice. Boil it for five minutes, and skim it; then add a wine-glassful of milk for every half pound of rice, and continue boiling for five minutes longer. Strain the water off through a colander, and put it dry into the pot, on the corner of the stove, pouring over the rice a small piece of butter, which has been melted in a tablespoonful of the hot milk and water in which the rice was boiled. Add salt, and stir the rice for five minutes more.
The decayed denizen of the ocean, dried to the consistency of biscuit, and known in Hindustan as a Bombay Duck, which is frequently eaten with curry, “over yonder,” does not find much favour, this side of Port Said, although I have met the fowl in certain city restaurants. The addition is not looked upon with any particular favour by the writer.
“I have yet to learn” once observed that great and good man, the late Doctor Joseph Pope,[7] to the writer, in a discussion on “postponed” game, “that it is a good thing to put corruption into the human stomach.”