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Rennet Pudding
Heat one quart fresh milk, sweeten it, then take it from the range and add three tablespoonfuls of liquid rennet, stir it well once, then place it on or near the ice to harden; serve with whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla. This is an inexpensive dessert and very nice; whipped cream sweetened is an improvement to this pudding although not necessary.
This is junket — milk set with rennet rather than eggs or gelatin. It succeeds or fails on two things: milk temperature and rennet dose.
- The hinge: milk temperatureRennet coagulates best at around 100-105F; it works sluggishly when cold and is progressively destroyed at higher temperatures, from roughly 140F. "Heat one quart fresh milk... then take it from the range" is best read as warming to blood heat rather than scalding. A thermometer helps: pull it at about 100F.
- Rennet strength has changedThree tablespoons is far more than a modern cook needs. Single-strength liquid animal or vegetable rennet from a cheesemaking supplier sets a quart with a few drops to 1/4 teaspoon; junket tablets are dosed per the package. Follow the label, not the tablespoons.
- Milk that will not setUltra-pasteurized and UHT milk will not coagulate properly — the protein has been heat-damaged. Use ordinary pasteurized whole milk. Skim milk gives a weak, watery curd.
- Stir once, then leave it"Stir it well once" is exact. Any agitation after the rennet is in breaks the forming curd and you get whey and lumps instead of a smooth set. Pour into serving dishes immediately and do not move them.
- Setting, then chillingIt sets at room temperature in about 10 to 15 minutes. The recipe sends it "on or near the ice to harden," but chilling a still-liquid mixture slows the rennet; better to let it firm up first, then refrigerate for an hour to chill.
- SweeteningThe original leaves the amount open; 3 to 4 tablespoons of sugar per quart works well. Dissolve it in the milk while warming, before the rennet goes in.
- YieldA quart makes six small dessert cups or four generous ones. Eat it the same day; it weeps whey by the second day.
Rennet — the enzyme from a calf's fourth stomach that curdles milk — is the foundation of nearly all cheese, and sweetened rennet custards are an old use of the same reaction, appearing in English cookery as curds and whey and also as junket, a much older word for a curds-and-cream dish (via the Italian giuncata, or rush basket), later registered as a brand name for rennet tablets. Commercial rennet extract became widely available to households in the later nineteenth century, and by the time this book was printed a bottle of liquid rennet or a box of tablets was a pantry staple, which is why the recipe assumes the reader has some on hand. Its appeal is exactly what the author says: a quart of milk, a little sugar and no eggs, no oven and no gelatin, set in a quarter of an hour. Rennet puddings were also a standard invalid and nursery food, being easy to digest.