Thoughts on Pudding - Patrick O'Brian
Separated by a Common Language
Bread Pudding
Donni Call's Bread Pudding URL (Wayback Machine)
Doug Essenger-Hileman's Bread Pudding Enhancements
Inder-Jeet Gujral's Bread Pudding Sauce
Louis Cohen's Chinese Rice Pudding
Figgy 'obbin
Natillas - Alice Gomez
Rose Pudding from from The Medieval Cookbook by Maggie Black
Tomato Pudding - Mary S.
Thoughts on Pudding - Patrick O'Brian
Other sweet dishes sometimes reach the table at the end of the meal, and by extension they too are called puddings; but although there are respectable tarts, pies, and preparations based on rice, most of the custards, syllabubs, flummeries and other kickshaws do not deserve the name at all, which should be reserved for nobler objects altogether, the true heroes' delight.
Bread Pudding
Doug Essenger-Hileman's Bread Pudding Enhancements
Following immediately on the heels of our conversation about bread pudding, and the more luxurious bread and butter pudding (which was described by one as being made by spreading jam on the bread), Food and Wine magazine has a recipe for Jam and Bread Pudding which uses challah bread sliced 1/2 inch thick and strawberry jam or preserves. After the jam-topped challah is loaded into the baking dish, it is covered with a standard custard and baked.
For what it's worth, the staff of Food and Wine recommends the strawberry preserves of Bonne Maman (from France) as the best tasting.
Inder-Jeet Gujral's Bread Pudding Sauce
I tried making the bread pudding - although I must confess I used bourbon for the sauce - Booker Noe's! It turned out to be absolutely delicious.
Louis Cohen's Chinese Rice Pudding
A dessert which might well be served at a traditional Chinese wedding is transliterated by Pei Mei's Chinese Cookbook, Volume I as Pa Pao Fan - Eight Treasure Rice Pudding.
Here is the recipe:
1 1/2 C Glutinous Rice
1/2 C Sweet red bean paste
20 candied lotus seeds
5 red dates
20 peanuts
20 longan pulp or white raisins (sultanas, no?)
30 brown raisins
4 pcs squash candy or candied citron
1/4 C candied orange peel
3 T lard (or shortening)
5 T sugar
1 T cornstarch (made into paste with the water)
1 T cold water
1. Wash the rice, place in deep pot add same amount of cold water, bring to a boil and cook about 3 minutes until the water is absorbed. Reduce heat to low, cover, cook another 10 minutes. Remove cooked rice to bowl, add 2T lard and 2 T sugar, mix well.
2. Using a mold or 6" bowl, brush the bottom with the remaining lard, lay all ingredients except rice in rows or other designs. Squash candy and orange peel must be cut into small pieces first.
3. Place 2/3 of the mixed rice in bowl and then put sweet red bean paste in the center. Cover bean paste with remaining rice, flatten, and steam for at least 2 hours. Unmold on a serving platter
4. Boil 1 C of water, add 3 T sugar, make it sticky with cornstarch paste. Pour the syrup on the pudding, serve immediately.
Figgy 'obbin
This is a traditional Cornish recipe. The "figs" refer to the Cornish common name for raisins.
Ingredients:
8 oz suet
1 lb flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
raisins
milk
sugar
Method:
Mix together the suet, flour, salt and baking powder. Add water gradually, to form a dry elastic dough. Knead lightly, then roll out to about 1/2" thick. Sprinkle on two handfuls of raisins, roll them in lightly with a rolling pin. Fold up, like a jam suet pudding, sealing the ends. Criss-cross the top with a knife, brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. Serve hot.
Natillas - Alice Gomez
"Natillas" here in New Mexico is a custard pudding, sweet and cinnamon-y.
From my ancient and falling-apart "Mexican Cookbook," by Erna Fergusson (University of New Mexico Press, 1934):
5 eggs
5 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 cups scalded milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Beat the yolks of the 5 eggs, and the whites of 2 eggs slightly. Add the granulated sugar, salt, and cinnamon and slowly pour in the scalded milk. Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and coats the spoon. Add the vanilla. Pour in a deep dish or custard cups.
Beat very stiff the whites of the remaining eggs. Add the powdered sugar.
Drop by spoonfuls on a pan of boiling water and steam until firm. Top the custard with meringue and dust with cinnamon.
Various versions of this are dished up at some of the local restaurants, most having a little tapioca in them, but none is quite so good as the original.
Rose Pudding from from The Medieval Cookbook by Maggie Black
Rosee. Take thyk milke; sethe it. Cast thereto sugar, a gode porcioun; pynes, dates ymynced, canel, & powdour gynger; and seeth it, and alye it with flours of white rosis, and flour of rys. Cole it. salt it & messe it forth. If thou wilt in stede of almounde mylke, take swete crem of kyne. (CI. IV. 53.)
Petals of one full-blown but unshrivelled white rose
4 level tablespoons rice flour or cornflour
275/10 fl. oz/1 1/4 cups milk
50 g/2 oz caster sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
575 ml/20 fl oz/2 1/2 cups single cream
Pinch of salt
10 dessert dates, stoned and finely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped pine nuts
"Thyk milke" in the old recipe looks suspiciously like sour milk or curd cheese, but in fact it means rich almond "milk" for a "fasting" meal. Hastily cream is offered as an alternative for other diners.
Take the petals off the rose one by one, and snip off the end which was attached to the seed-case. Blanch the petals in boiling water for 2 minutes, then press them between several sheets of soft kitchen paper and put a heavy flat weight on top to squeeze them dry. (They may look depressingly greyish but blending will cure the dish's complexion.) Put the rice flour or cornflour in a saucepan, and blend into enough of the milk to make a smooth cream. Stir in the remaining milk. Place the pan over low hear, and stir until the mixture starts to thicken. Turn it into the goblet of an electric blender, and add the sugar, spices and rose-petals. Process until fully blended, then add and blend in the cream and salt.
Turn the mixture into a heavy saucepan, and stir over very low heat, below the boil, until it is the consistency of softly whipped cream. Stir in most of the chopped dates and pine nut kernels, and stir for 2 minutes. Turn into a glass or decorative blown and cool. Stir occasionally while cooling to prevent a skin forming. Chill. Just before serving decorate with the remaining dates and nuts.
Tomato Pudding - Mary S.
Or, what my mother-in-law did with canned tomatoes: no one else likes it, so I guess I shall give up making it. But I thought it very good for holiday dinners:
Tear up a whole batch of soft white bread. Open a big can of tomatoes. Mix these ingredients in a casserole (e.g. Corning Ware) with lots and lots of brown sugar and lots of knobs of butter. Bake, stirring repeatedly at intervals, until it's hot, red-golden and amalgamated throughout, and lightly browning on top.
The sides of the casserole get horribly blackened, but I can't help that. The scrubbing will be good for your soul, like chipping paint.
A nice tart but sweet flavor which (to me) is good either hot with the dinner, or cold later on. And a cheerful, holiday color.
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