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Nouilles Turnovers
Nouilles turnovers are slightly similar to nouilles rolls. Make the pastry rather softer than usual by adding a little water, roll it out very thin, cut it into pieces the shape of an egg, about two inches across, and cover half the surface of each with a little fruit finely-minced, sweetened, and flavoured, and mixed with a few bread-crumbs. Turn the other halves over, fasten the edges securely, put the turnovers into a little boiling water, and let them simmer gently until done enough. Drain them well, and serve them on a hot dish with powdered sugar sprinkled thickly over them. Time to simmer, one hour. Probable cost, 8d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A boiled fruit dumpling made with noodle dough rather than pastry — closer to a Central European Teigtasche than to a baked turnover. One instruction in the original is badly wrong for the modern cook, and it is the timing.
- Simmer for minutes, not an hourFresh egg-noodle dough of this thinness is cooked through in roughly 4 to 8 minutes at a bare simmer, and the filling needs no longer. The stated hour will burst the seams and reduce the dough to paste; take one out at five minutes and cut it to check.
- What "the pastry" means hereNot shortcrust. Nouilles paste is a stiff egg-noodle dough; a workable modern version is about 2 cups flour to 3 or 4 egg yolks and a pinch of salt, worked smooth and rested 30 minutes. The instruction to add "a little water" is to slacken it enough to roll very thin and to seal without cracking.
- Rolling thinAim for about 1/16 inch, or the second-thinnest setting of a pasta machine. Thicker dough gives a heavy, gluey dumpling; the two-inch ovals should be almost translucent.
- SealingDamp the edge with water or egg white, press out any trapped air, and crimp firmly. Fruit juice plus steam is what forces these open, which is exactly what the breadcrumbs in the filling are there to absorb — do not leave them out.
- Fruit for the fillingStoned cherries, plums, apricots or cooked apple all suit; mince finely and sweeten to taste. Very wet fruit should be drained first, or the crumbs will not cope.
- The waterUse a wide pan of lightly salted water at a gentle simmer, not a rolling boil, and cook in batches so the turnovers are not crowded. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and drain briefly on a cloth.
- FinishingSugar alone is the original service, but melted butter poured over before the sugar, or buttered fried breadcrumbs, is the traditional Central European treatment and keeps them from sticking together on the dish.
- Yield and costFour to five as a sweet course, as stated. The "8d." is eightpence in pre-decimal currency, a costing convention Cassell's gives throughout and of no practical use now beyond showing this was a cheap dish.
Nouilles is simply the French spelling of noodles, taken from the German Nudel. Cassell's places the entry alongside other nouilles preparations, such as nouilles rolls, that show how egg-noodle paste was understood in Britain as a versatile dough rather than only as a soup garnish. Boiled fruit dumplings of this kind are a fixture across Central and Eastern Europe, from Bohemian plum dumplings to Polish and Ukrainian pierogi with cherries, and the addition of breadcrumbs to the fruit is the standard old trick for keeping the juice from bursting the seal. The costing of eightpence for four or five people made it a plain family pudding dressed in a French name.