A VERY NICE BOILED INDIAN PUDDING.—Three pints of sifted Indian meal.—Half a pound of beef-suet, minced as fine as possible.—A quart of milk.—Half a pint of West India molasses.—Six eggs.—Three or four sticks of cinnamon, broken small.—A grated nutmeg. Having cleared the suet from the skin and strings, chop it as fine as possible, and mix it with the Indian meal. Boil the cinnamon in the milk till it is highly flavoured. Then strain the milk (boiling hot) into the pan of Indian meal and suet, and add the molasses. Stir the mixture very hard. Cover it and set it away in a cool place. Beat the eggs till quite light, and add them, gradually, to the mixture as soon as it is quite cold. Then grate in the nutmeg. Dip a thick square cloth into boiling water, shake it out, dredge it with flour, and then spread it open in a deep pan, and pour in the mixture. Leaving one-third of the space vacant allowing for the pudding to swell, tie the cloth very securely, and to guard against water getting into it, plug up the little crack at the tying place by plastering on a bit of dough made of flour and water. Put the pudding into a large pot of boiling water, (having an old plate in the bottom,) and boil it six hours or more, turning it often, and replenishing the pot, when necessary, with boiling water from a kettle. If you dine early, the pudding should be mixed before breakfast. Serve it up hot.
Eat it with wine sauce, with butter and molasses, or with a sauce of butter, sugar, lemon-juice and nutmeg, beaten together to a cream. What is left of the pudding, may next day be tied in a cloth, and boiled over again for an hour.
BAKED CORN MEAL PUDDING.—A pint of sifted Indian meal.—Half a pint of West India molasses.—A quarter of a pound of fresh butter.—A pint of milk.—Four eggs.—The yellow rind of a large fresh orange or lemon grated.—A tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon and nutmeg mixed. Boil the milk. Sift the Indian meal into an earthen pan, pour the boiling milk over it, and stir them well together. Cut up the butter into a small sauce-pan; pour the molasses over it; set it on the fire, and let them warm together till the butter is soft, but not oiled. Stir them well, and mix them with the milk and Indian meal. Set the pan in a cool place. In a separate pan beat the eggs very light, and when the mixture has become cold, add the eggs to it, gradually. Then stir in the spice, and grated orange or lemon peel. Stir the whole very hard. Put the mixture into a buttered white dish, and bake it well. Serve it up hot, and eat it with a sauce made of powdered white sugar, and fresh butter seasoned with nutmeg and lemon or orange juice, and stirred together to a cream; or with a liquid sauce of melted butter, wine and nutmeg.
This quantity of ingredients will make a small pudding. For a large one, allow a double portion of each article, and bake it longer.
It will be improved by gradually stirring in at the last, a pound of Zante currants or of sultana raisins, well dredged with flour.
PUMPKIN INDIAN PUDDING.—Take a pint and a half of cold stewed pumpkin, and mix into it a pint and a half of Indian meal, adding a table-spoonful of ground ginger. Boil a quart of milk, and as soon as you take it from the fire, stir into it a pint of West India molasses. Then add to it gradually the mixture of pumpkin and corn meal, and stir the whole very hard. It will be much improved by adding the grated yellow rind of a large orange or lemon. Have ready over the fire a large pot of boiling water. Dip your pudding-cloth into it; shake it out; spread out the cloth in a broad pan: dredge it with flour; pour the mixture into it, and tie it fast, leaving about one-third of the space for the pudding to swell. Boil it three hours or more—four hours will not be too long. Turn it several times while boiling. Replenish the pot as it boils, with hot water from a kettle kept boiling for the purpose. Take up the pudding immediately before it is wanted for table—dip it a moment in cold water, and turn it out into a dish. Eat it with butter and molasses.
This pudding requires no eggs in the mixture. The molasses, if West India, will make it sufficiently light.