DIVISION IV.—PUDDINGS.
These are a species of bread, only made thinner. They are usually unfermented. I shall speak of two kinds—hominy and puddings proper.
Section A.—Hominy.
This is usually eaten hot; but it improves on keeping a day or two. It may be warmed over, if necessary.
Receipt 1.—Wheat hominy, or cracked wheat, may be made into a species of pudding thus: Stir the hominy into boiling water (a little salted, if it must be so), very gradually. Boil from fifteen minutes to one hour. If boiled too long, it has a raw taste.
Receipt 2.—Corn hominy, or, as it is sometimes called, samp. Two quarts of hominy; four quarts of water; stir well, that the hulls may rise; then pour off the water through a sieve, that the hulls may separate. Pour the same water again upon the hominy, stir well, and pour off again several times. Finally, pour back the water, add a little salt, if you use salt at all, and if necessary, a little more water, and hang it over a slow fire to boil. During the first hour it should be stirred almost constantly. Boil from three to six hours.
Receipt 3.—Another way: Take white Indian corn broken coarsely, put it over the fire with plenty of water, adding more boiling water as it wastes. It requires long boiling. Some boil it for six hours the day before it is wanted, and from four to six the next day. Salt, if used at all, may be added on the plate.
Receipt 4.—Another way still of making hominy is to soak it over night, and boil it slowly for four or five hours, in the same water, which should be soft.
There are other ways of making hominy, but I have no room to treat of them.
Section B.—Puddings proper.
These are of various kinds. Indeed, a single work I have before me on Vegetable Cookery has not less than 127 receipts for dishes of this sort, to say nothing of its pancakes, fritters, etc. I shall select a few of the best, and leave the rest.
The greatest objection to puddings is, that they are usually swallowed in large quantity, unmasticated, after we have eaten enough of something else. They are also eaten new and hot, and with butter, or some other mixture almost as injurious. Some puddings, from half a day to a day and a half old, are almost as good for us as bread.
One of the best puddings I know of, is a stale loaf of bread, steamed. Another is good sweet kiln dried oat meal, without any cooking at all. But there are some good cooked puddings, I say again, such as the following:
Receipt 1.—Boiled Indian pudding: Indian meal, a quart; water, a pint; molasses, a teacup full. Mix it well, and boil four hours.
Receipt 2.—Another Indian pudding. Indian meal, three pints; scald it, make it thin, and boil it about six hours.
Receipt 3.—Another of the same: To one quart of boiling milk, while boiling, add a teacup full of Indian meal; mix well, and add a little molasses. Boil three hours in a strong heat.
Receipt 4.—Hominy: Take a quart of milk and half a pint of Indian meal; mix it well, and add a pint and a half of cooked hominy. Bake well in a moderate oven.
Receipt 5.—Baked Indian pudding may be made by putting together and baking well a quart of milk, a pint of Indian meal, and a pint of water. Add salt or molasses, if you please.
Receipt 6.—Oat meal pudding: Pour a quart of boiling milk over a pint of the best fine oat meal; let it soak all night; next day add two beaten eggs; rub over, with pure sweet oil, a basin that will just hold it; cover it tight with a floured cloth, and boil it an hour and a half. When cold, slice and toast, or rather dry it, and eat it as you would oat cake itself.
This may be the proper place to say, that all coarse meal puddings are healthiest when twelve or twenty hours old; but are all improved—and so is brown bread—by drying, or almost toasting on the stove.
Receipt 7.—Rice pudding: To one quart of new milk add a teacup full of rice, sweetened a little. No dressings are necessary without you choose them. Bake it well.
Receipt 8.—Wheat meal pudding may be made by wetting the coarse meal with milk, and sweetening it a little with molasses. Bake in a moderate heat.
Receipt 9.—Boiled rice pudding may be made by boiling half a pound of rice in a moderate quantity of water, and adding, when tender, a coffee-cup full of milk, sweetening a little, and baking, or rather simmering half an hour. Add salt if you prefer it.
Receipt 10.—Polenta—Corn meal, mixed with cheese—grated, as I suppose, but we are not told in what proportion it is used—baked well, makes a pudding which the Italians call polenta. It is not very digestible.
Receipt 11.—Pudding may be made of any of the various kinds of meal I have mentioned, except those containing rye, by adding from one fourth to one third of the meal of the comfrey root. See Division I of this class, Section B, Receipt 17.
Receipt 12.—Bread pudding: Take a loaf of rather stale bread, cut a hole in it, add as much new milk as it will soak up through the opening, tie it up in a cloth, and boil it an hour.
Receipt 13.—Another of the same: Slice bread thinly, and put it in milk, with a little sweetening; add a little flour, and bake it an hour and a half.
Receipt 14.—Another still: Three pints of milk, one pound of baker's bread, four spoonfuls of sugar, and three of molasses. Cut the bread in slices; interpose a few raisins, if you choose, between each two slices, and then pour on the milk and sweetening. If baked, an hour and a half is sufficient. If boiled, two or three hours. Use a tin pudding boiler.
Receipt 15.—Rice and apple pudding: Boil six ounces of rice in a pint of milk, till it is soft; then fill a dish about half full of apples pared and cored; sweeten; put the rice over them as a crust, and bake it.
Receipt 16.—Stirabout is made in Scotland by stirring oat meal in boiling water till it becomes a thick pudding or porridge. This, with cakes of oat meal and potatoes, forms the principal food of many parts of Scotland.
Receipt 17.—Hasty pudding is best made as follows: Mix five or six spoonfuls of sifted meal in half a pint of cold water; stir it into a quart of water, while boiling; and from time to time sprinkle and stir in meal till it becomes thick enough. It should boil half or three quarters of an hour. It may be made of Indian or rye meal.
Receipt 18.—Potato pudding: Take two pounds of well boiled and well mashed potato, one pound of wheat meal; make a stiff paste, by mixing well; and tie it in a wet cloth dusted with flour. Boil it two hours.
Receipt 19.—Apple pudding may be made by alternating a layer of prepared apples with a layer of dough made of wheat meal, till you have filled a tin pudding boiler. Boil it three hours.
Receipt 20.—Sago pudding: Take half a pint of sago and a quart of milk. Boil half the milk, and pour it on the sago; let it stand half an hour; then add the remainder of the milk. Sweeten to your taste.
Receipt 21.—Tapioca pudding may be prepared in a similar manner.
Receipt 22.—To make cracker pudding, to a quart of milk add four thick large coarse meal crackers broken in pieces, a little sugar, and a little flour, and bake it one hour and thirty minutes.
Receipt 23.—Sweet apple pudding is made by cutting in pieces six sweet apples, and putting them and half a pint of Indian meal, with a little salt, into a pint of milk, and baking it about three hours.
Receipt 24.—Sunderland pudding is thus made: Take about two thirds of a good-sized teacup full of flour, three eggs, and a pint of milk. Bake about fifteen minutes in cups. Dress it as you please—sweet sauce is preferred.
Receipt 25.—Arrow root pudding may be made by adding two ounces of arrow root, previously well mixed with a little cold milk, to a pint of milk boiling hot. Set it on the fire; let it boil fifteen or twenty minutes, stirring it constantly. When cool, add three eggs and a little sugar, and bake it in a moderate oven.
Receipt 26.—Boiled arrow root pudding: Mix as before, only do not let it quite boil. Stir it briskly for some time, after putting it on the fire the second time, at a heat of not over 180 degrees. When cooled, add three eggs and a little salt.
Receipt 27.—Cottage pudding: Two pounds of potatoes, pared, boiled, and mashed, one pint of milk, three eggs, and two ounces of sugar, and if you choose, a little salt. Bake it three quarters of an hour.
Receipt 28.—Snow balls: Pare and core as many large apples as there are to be balls; wash some rice—about a large spoonful to an apple will be enough; boil it in a little water with a pinch of salt, and drain it. Spread it on cloths, put on the apples, and boil them an hour. Before they are turned out of the cloths, dip them into cold water.
Macaroni is made into puddings a great deal, and so is vermicelli; but they are at best very indifferent dishes. Those who live solely to eat may as well consult "Vegetable Cookery," where they will find indulgences enough and too many, even though flesh and fish are wholly excluded. They will find soups, pancakes, omelets, fritters, jellies, sauces, pies, puddings, dumplings, tarts, preserves, salads, cheese-cakes, custards, creams, buns, flummery, pickles, syrups, sherbets, and I know not what. You will find them by hundreds. And you will find directions, too, for preparing almost every vegetable production of both hemispheres. And if you have brains of your own you may invent a thousand new dishes every day for a long time without exhausting the vegetable kingdom.