Rich Rice Pudding (1857)
Reader ratingsAlexis Soyer’s rich rice pudding for the hospitals: rice simmered in milk and water with sugar, lemon peel and butter, then set with beaten eggs and baked quickly.
- Recipe makes
- One 2-quart dish, 6 servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
About 35 minutes to simmer the rice tender in the milk, 5 minutes to mix in the eggs while the oven heats, and about 30 minutes in a hot oven.
Baked rice pudding set with eggs, with one portion spooned out.
The story behind the recipe
Rice pudding turns up twice in Alexis Soyer’s account of the Scutari hospitals in 1855. In his first weeks there he tried small batches of all the extra diets, from broths and beef tea to “rice pudding, sago, bread, vermicelli and macaroni.” And at the hospital of Kululee, about five miles from Scutari along the Bosphorus, he found in the extra-diet kitchen “excellent rice pudding made by the Sisters of Mercy.”
Which rice pudding went to the wards?
That is the gap in the record. Soyer’s hospital diets, printed at the back of his book in 1857, give several puddings, and No. 27 is the only rice pudding among them, the one he calls rich, with four eggs and a whole lemon peel to half a pound of rice. Extra diets went to patients as the doctors ordered them, and Soyer left no record of who was ordered this one. So this is his printed recipe for a dish he says he made at Scutari, and the exact version any one ward was served stays unknown. For Soyer’s whole Scutari kitchen, from tin dishes to hot cases, read What Did Soyer Cook for the Soldiers at Scutari?.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
Soyer names no kind of rice; a short-grain pudding rice is our choice. The one decision Soyer leaves open is the oven. He says only “bake quickly,” and we read that as a hot oven, 375°F (190°C), since the bread and butter pudding printed a few lines above it goes “in a hot oven for half an hour.” A thermometer tells you when the eggs are set. Isabella Beeton printed a plainer baked rice pudding four years later, and TuneMyRecipe, our sister site, has her version of 1861 (opens in a new tab). The ward soup that opens the same list is his Semi-Stewed Mutton and Barley (1857).
No. 27.—Rich Rice Pudding.
Put in ½lb. of rice in a stew-pan, washed, 3 pints of milk, 1 pint of water, 3oz. of sugar, 1 lemon peel, 1oz. of fresh butter; boil gently half an hour, or until the rice is tender; add 4 eggs, well beaten, mix well, and bake quickly for half an hour, and serve: it may be steamed if preferred.
Recipe makes: One 2-quart dish, 6 servings
Ingredients
For One 2-quart dish, 6 servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for One 2-quart dish, 6 servings.
- Short-grain rice0.25 lb
- Whole milk3 1/2 cups
- Water1 1/4 cups
- Sugar3 1/2 tbsp
- Lemon, peel only, in wide strips without the white pith1/2
- Butter, for the rice1 tbsp
- Large eggs, well beaten2
- Butter, for the dish1 tsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- ¼ lb short-grain rice
- 3½ cups whole milk
- 1¼ cups water
- 3½ tbsp sugar
- ½ lemon, peel only, in wide strips without the white pith
- 1 tbsp butter, for the rice
- 2 large eggs, well beaten
- 1 tsp butter, for the dish
Equipment
- Heavy saucepan, about 3 quarts
Fine sieve- 2-quart baking dish
- Whisk and small bowl
Instant-read thermometer
Instructions
Wash the rice in the sieve under cold running water and drain it.
Put the rice into the saucepan with the milk, water, sugar, lemon peel and butter for the rice. Bring it just to a boil over medium heat, stirring, then turn the heat down and boil very gently for 30 to 35 minutes, stirring often and scraping the bottom, until the rice is tender. It will still be loose and milky.
Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Rub the baking dish with the butter for the dish. Take the pan off the heat, lift out the lemon peel and let the rice stand for 5 minutes.
Stir a little of the hot rice into the eggs in the small bowl, then stir the eggs into the rice and mix well. Pour it into the buttered dish.
Bake for about 30 minutes, until the top is pale gold, the edges are set and the center trembles only slightly. The center should read at least 160°F (71°C), the safe temperature for egg dishes.
Serve warm.
Nutrition
225calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- One 2-quart dish, 6 servings
- Servings
- 6
Estimated per serving (6) from USDA FoodData Central values for short-grain white rice, whole milk, sugar, butter and whole egg.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Half of Soyer’s amounts. The full recipe fits a 4-quart dish and needs 10 to 15 minutes more in the oven; go by the thermometer.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Our amounts are half of Soyer’s: his 3 imperial pints of milk and 1 of water come to about 3½ and 1¼ US cups at half size, his 3 ounces of sugar to about 3½ tablespoons, his ounce of butter to a tablespoon. Half a lemon’s peel stands in for half of his “1 lemon peel.” We added the washing method, stirring a little hot rice into the eggs before they go in, the oven temperature, the dish size and the thermometer reading; the 375°F (190°C) follows Soyer’s bread and butter pudding on the same page and modern baked rice puddings set with eggs. To steam it as Soyer allows, pour the mixture into a buttered 2-quart heatproof bowl, cover it with foil and steam it over simmering water for about 40 minutes, until the center reads 160°F (71°C). Cool leftovers quickly, refrigerate them within 1 hour and eat them within a day. Contains milk and eggs.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment.
Sources and attribution
After Alexis Soyer, Soyer’s Culinary Campaign (London, 1857), Hospital Diets No. 27
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Course
- Dessert
- Dish family
- Desserts & Sweets
- Region
- British
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1850s
- Main ingredient
- Grains & riceMilk & cream
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Season
- Winter