Black pudding

“ PUDDING, a term, now of rather wide application, for a dish consisting of boiled flour enclosing or containing meat, vegetables or fruit, or of batter, rice, sago or other farinaceous foods boiled or baked with milk and eggs. Properly a pudding should be one boiled in a cloth or bag. There are countless varieties, of which the most familiar are the Christmas plum-pudding, the Yorkshire pudding and the suet pudding. ”

“ Boiled puddings should be served as soon as they are done, as they soon become heavy.
Many of the baked puddings I have described are quite as good boiled. As a safe rule, double the time of baking if you boil.
Berry Pudding. 1 pint of milk. 2 eggs. 1 saltspoonful salt. 1⁄4 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water. 1⁄2 teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted through a cup of flour, and added to enough flour to make a thick batter. 1 pint blackberries, raspberries, currants, or huckleberries, well dredged with flour—stirred in at the last. Huckleberry Pudding. ✠ 1 pint milk. 2 eggs. ”

“ A bag made of two thicknesses of cheese-cloth, stitched together, will do. Always leave room in mold or bag for pudding to rise, using a smaller or larger mold according to quantity of pudding. If not boiled steadily, and emptied as soon as done, puddings will fall and stick.
ALMOND PUDDING Beat the yolks of four eggs very light with one-half cup of sugar; then add one-half cup of grated walnuts or almonds, one-half cup of grated white bread crumbs, then the stiffly-beaten whites of four eggs. Put in pudding form and steam from one and one-half to two hours. Serve with wine or fruit sauce. ”

“ After dissolving the corn-starch in a little cold water, heat the milk to boiling and stir this in, and boil three minutes, stirring the mixture all the time; next, stir in the butter, and set away until cold. Beat the eggs until very light, when add the sugar and seasoning, and then stir into the corn-starch, beating thoroughly to a smooth custard. Put into a buttered dish, and bake not more than half an hour. This pudding is best eaten cold, with sauce made of cream and sugar, flavored with nutmeg or cinnamon, or both, or plain powdered sugar, as tastes may prefer. ”

“ He ought, every day, to have a pudding for his dinner—either rice, arrow-root, sago, tapioca, suet-pudding, batter-pudding, or Yorkshire-pudding, mixed with crumbs of bread and gravy—free from grease. A well boiled suet-pudding, with plenty of suet in it, is one of the best puddings he can have; it is, in point of fact, meat and farinaceous food combined, and is equal to, and will oftentimes prevent the giving of, cod-liver oil; before cod-liver oil came into vogue, suet boiled in milk was the remedy for a delicate child. ”

“ Beat up the whites of the eggs with a little sifted sugar and a few drops of essence of vanilla. When very stiff, pile it on the top of the pudding and serve at once.
PLAIN SUET PUDDING.
This pudding, whether intended to be eaten with meat or with jam or treacle, is infinitely superior cooked in a paper bag to the same pudding boiled or steamed. Mix one pound of self-raising flour with four ounces of chopped suet, preferably vegetable, and a pinch of salt. Mix to a stiff dough with water, put into a buttered bag and cook for forty-five minutes. ”

“ The three varieties would be represented by a custard pudding, a plain rice pudding, and a cornflour or semolina pudding made with eggs. A well-made milk pudding is a palatable and usually acceptable dish, and being so easily made it is difficult to understand why they are nearly always in too dry or too liquid a condition, when the mean is so easily obtained. If a custard pudding be allowed to boil it becomes watery; if cooked too quickly, without actually boiling, it is full of holes. ”

“ Take a large clean square cloth of coarse strong linen, dip it in boiling water, shake it, spread it out in a large pan, and dredge it with flour to prevent the pudding from sticking to it when boiled. Then pour the pudding-mixture into the cloth; leave room for it to swell, and tie it firmly, plastering up the tying-place with a bit of coarse dough made of flour and water. Have ready a large pot full of water, and boiling hard. Put in the pudding, and boil it well from six to eight hours. Less than six will not be sufficient, and eight hours will not be too long. ”

“ Into a pint and a half of flour, stir gradually a quart of milk; stir it till free from lumps, then add seven beaten eggs, a couple of tea spoonsful of salt, and a grated nutmeg. A pudding made in this manner is good either baked or boiled; it takes two hours to boil and one to bake it. It should be eaten as soon as cooked or it will be heavy. This as well as all other kinds of boiled puddings should not be put into the pot until the water boils and should not be allowed to stop for a moment, if the water wastes much in boiling, fill the pot up with boiling water. ”

“ At the end of that time beat one egg very light, and stir it in, pouring slowly, so that it may be mixed all through the hot pudding and puff it up. Then cook for one minute, turn it into a china pudding-dish, or into individual molds, and cool. Serve with cream.
Corn-starch pudding should have a tender consistency and a sweet and wholesome taste. The difficulty with many is that they are not thoroughly cooked, and are too stiff and hard when cool. When you find this to be the case, lessen the amount of corn-starch used. The proportion in this recipe may always be relied upon. ”

“ Two of these dishes, always served up one after the other, made the usual Dinner of a Substantial Gentleman or wealthy Citizen." But the French traveller becomes enthusiastic over the English pudding. "The pudding is a dish very difficult to be described. Flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, suet, marrow, raisins, &c., are the most common ingredients of a pudding. They bake them in an oven, they boil them with meat, they make them fifty different ways. Blessed be he that invented Pudding. Ah, what an excellent thing is an English Pudding!" ”

“ Pass the flour through a sieve on to a board, mix with it the salt and baking powder, and thoroughly rub in the butter. Make a hole in the centre of the paste, pour in the water, stirring it into the paste at the same time with the other hand. When sufficiently moist to adhere in the shape of a ball, roll out to the required thickness. If cooked in a basin the pudding will require to boil for at least three hours; if in a cloth, less time will be found sufficient. ”

“ As for cheese-cakes, custards, tansies, &c., they are manifest puddings, and all of Sir John's own contrivance; custard being as old, if not older, than Magna Charta. In short, pudding is of the greatest dignity and antiquity; bread itself, which is the very staff of life, being, properly speaking, a bak'd wheat pudding.
To the satchel, which is the pudding-bag of ingenuity, we are indebted for the greatest men in church and state. All arts and sciences owe their original to pudding or dumpling. What is a bagpipe, the mother of all music, but a pudding of harmony? ”

“ Take three cups breadcrumbs, one cup flour, one cup chopped suet or dripping, one teaspoonful baking powder; rub these well together, and a cup of sugar. A cupful of currants washed and picked, the same of raisins, sultanas or pudding raisins, stoned and chopped, candied peel—if you like it—and, if you have them to spare, mix with a couple or three eggs, if not, use plain milk, or even water. Tie in a cloth and boil two hours. Never put the pudding into the water until it boils. It is a mistake that dripping cannot be used in a boiled pudding. ”

“ Groat Pudding.—Boil raspberries or red currants, press and strain the juice. To 1 pint this add 1 pint red wine, and set it on the fire with ample sugar to sweeten. When it boils sprinkle in 1⁄4 lb. coarsely-ground corn, barley, or groats; stir this till it thickens and is done, then put it into a wetted mould; when quite cold, turn it out on a dish. Any fruit sauce may be poured over it. The same red pudding may be made with rice, nudels, or sago. It should turn out of the mould in a jelly, but not too stiff. ”

“ Two pounds of raisins, one pound of currants, one pound of citron, half a pound of almonds, one pound of butter, one pound of flour, one pound of brown sugar, one teaspoonful each of ground cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger and nutmeg, half a pint of brandy and wine mixed and one dozen eggs. Boil six hours. Keep water boiling by the side of pudding boiler all the time and continually refill as the water evaporates. In preparing the pudding have all the fruit stoned and cut, but not too fine, the almonds blanched and chopped. ”

“ I wish, Elizabeth, you would tell me some new puddings. Archie says ours are so dull."
Elizabeth immediately threw herself into the subject of puddings.
"I know one new pudding, but it takes two days to make and it's very expensive. We only have it for special people. You know 'Aunt Mag,' of course? and 'Uncle Tom'? That's only 'Aunt Mag' with treacle. Semolina, sago, big rice—we call those milk things, we don't dignify them by the name of pudding. What else is there? Tarts, oh! and bread puddings, and there's that greasy kind you eat with syrup, suet dumplings. ”

“ Neun-loth Pudding.—This favourite pudding is made as follows:—Stir 1⁄2 pint milk into 41⁄2 oz. fine flour and 41⁄2 oz. powdered loaf sugar. Put into a stewpan 41⁄2 oz. butter and 1⁄2 pint milk. When this is hot and the butter melted, stir in the other milk and flour; keep the mixture stirred over the fire till it boils and thickens, then turn it out in a pan to cool. Stir in the yolks of 9 eggs, 41⁄2 oz. almonds blanched and pounded, and, lastly, the 9 egg-whites whisked to a stiff snow. Stir all briskly together, butter a mould or basin, fill it, and boil the pudding 11⁄2 hour. ”

“ Proceed as above either for butcher's meat, chicken, and other domestic fowls, or game.
Puddings.—Puddings are made of several materials and in a hundred different ways. Some are cooked by boiling, others are baked, and some are both boiled and baked. Puddings for inhabitants of cities ought to be made as light as possible. For persons working outside and at manual labor, it does not matter, because their food passes through the system in a short time. It is very well known that the poorer class of Americans eat too much pudding and pie. Many do it for economy, others for convenience. ”

“ When the pudding has boiled a long enough time, dip the bag quickly in cold water, and the pudding will turn out easily. Allow five large eggs to 1 quart of milk usually to make custard solid enough to keep its shape when turned from the mold. One teaspoonful of extract will flavor one quart. Always stand individual cups in a pan partly filled with hot water. Place pan containing custard cups in a moderate oven and bake slowly forty minutes. Always sift flour over beef suet when chopping it to be used in puddings. ”

“ Several such puddings can be made at once, kept in a cool place, and when wanted warmed over; many relish it better when very cold. Sago can be used instead of tapioca. When no sago or tapioca are at hand, the following recipe for flour pudding may be used, baking a long time.
Flour Puddings.—Take four table-spoonfuls of flour, half a tea-spoonful of salt, a pint of water or milk, three eggs, and a salt-spoonful of soda. Mix and beat very thoroughly, and bake as soon as done, or it will not be light. It must bake till the middle is not lower than the rest. Eat with liquid sauce. ”

“ If there is much fat in the dripping-pan before the pudding is ready to be put in, drain it off, leaving just enough to prevent the batter from sticking to the bottom.
Receipt for Pudding. 1 pint of milk. 4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately. 2 cups of prepared flour. 1 teaspoonful salt.
Be careful, in mixing, not to get the batter too stiff.
This pudding, which the cook who introduced it into my family persisted in calling “Auction pudding,” is very palatable and popular, and not so rich as would be [86] thought from the manner of baking. ”

“ Indian puddings can scarcely be boiled too long. They will be the better, indeed, for eight hours’ boiling.
A FINE INDIAN PUDDING.—Take a pound of raisins, and cut them in half, having first removed the seeds. Then spread them on a large dish, and dredge them thickly with fine wheat flour, turning them about, that both sides may be well floured. Boil a quart of rich milk, and when it has come to a boil, take it off the fire, and set it to cool. Transfer the half of this milk (one pint) to another pan, and, while it is still warm, stir into it a quarter of a pound of butter, cut into bits ”

“ ROLLED PUDDING. Roll out thin a bit of light puff paste, or a good suet crust, and spread equally over it to within an inch of the edge, any kind of fruit jam. Orange marmalade, and mincemeat make excellent varieties of this pudding, and a deep layer of fine brown sugar, flavoured with the grated rind and strained juice of one very large, or of two small, lemons, answers for it extremely well. ”

“ The pudding (italics for ‘the,’ please) has no rival in size or quality. Its glories have been sung in every country, even the Fort Worth Texas Gazette having something to say on the subject. The pudding ranges from fifty to sixty, seventy, and eighty pounds weight, and gossip has it that in the dim past the rare dish was constructed to proportions of a hundredweight. It is composed of a fine light crust in a huge china basin, and there are entombed therein beefsteaks, kidneys, oysters, larks, mushrooms, and wondrous spices and gravies, the secret of which is known only to the compounder. ”