Boil finely cut noodles in salted water; drain and mix with the yolks of 5 eggs, ½ cup of raisins, sugar, cinnamon, and grated lemon peel to taste. Add the beaten whites. Line the pudding-dish with a rich pie-paste. Fill with the noodles and pour over some melted butter. Bake until brown. Serve hot with lemon sauce.
A terse recipe of the kind that assumes the cook already knows the dish: no noodle quantity, no oven temperature, no baking time. The proportions below fit the five eggs the original does specify.
- Noodle quantityFive yolks plus five beaten whites will bind roughly 8 oz (225 g) of dry fine egg noodles, about 4 cups cooked. "Finely cut noodles" means narrow flat ribbons, close to modern fine egg noodles or the Hungarian metélt; boil them a minute short of done since they will bake further.
- Oven and timeBake at 350–375°F. A pastry-lined pudding of this size needs 40–50 minutes, until the top is set and browned and a knife comes out clean of loose custard.
- Fold the whites lastThis is the hinge. The whites are what lifts the pudding out of the density of plain baked noodles, so beat them to soft peaks and fold them in after everything else is combined, then get the dish into the oven without delay.
- "Rich pie-paste"A short crust with a high proportion of butter, sometimes with an egg yolk in it. Line the dish and chill it firm before filling; a soft raw crust under a wet noodle mixture will slump. Blind-baking the shell for 10 minutes gives a better base than the original allows for.
- Sugar, cinnamon, lemon"To taste" here lands around 1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar, a teaspoon of cinnamon and the zest of one lemon. Toss the raisins with the warm noodles so they plump rather than scorch against the crust.
- Lemon sauceTypically a stirred sauce: sugar, water or milk, cornstarch or a little flour, butter, lemon juice and zest, cooked until it thickens and clears. Serve it warm and pour at the table.
- YieldA 9-inch dish, serving six to eight as dessert. It is best hot from the oven; reheated, the crust softens and the noodles tighten.
Sweet baked noodle puddings run through the whole of Central Europe under a shelf of related names — Hungarian metélt and rétesmetélt dishes, Austrian Nudelauflauf, and the Ashkenazi noodle kugel that shares the same raisins, cinnamon and lemon peel. The combination points to a kitchen where noodles were made at home from egg dough and cut by hand, and where a dessert was expected to be substantial rather than light. The book gives each day of the year a dish attached to a different nation, which is why the entry sits between Italian veal patés and Polish stewed chicken with no further explanation.