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SHRIMP PUDDING (a Danish recipe)
This is made in the same way as spinach pudding (see SPINACH PUDDING), only instead of using spinach take a pint of picked shrimps. Chop the shrimps small before mixing them with the bread and eggs. This pudding is eaten with shrimp and asparagus sauce.
A one-line variation that depends entirely on another entry, so read the spinach pudding recipe first: this is a bread-and-egg panada steamed in a mould, with shrimps standing in for the greens.
- It is a cross-reference, not a standalone recipeThe structural detail — quantities, binding and cooking method — lives in the spinach pudding entry. All this entry supplies is the shrimps in place of the spinach, and the instruction to chop them small before mixing with the bread and eggs.
- A pint of picked shrimpsThis is a volume measure of already-shelled shrimp, roughly 10 to 12 oz by weight. "Picked" means peeled and heads removed; the Victorian assumption is small brown or pink shrimps, so modern small cold-water shrimp are the closest match rather than large prawns.
- Chop, do not puréeThe instruction to chop small matters because the shrimps replace a wet, fine-textured vegetable. Chopped by hand they distribute evenly through the panada; blitzed in a processor they turn to paste and the pudding sets dense and rubbery.
- Steaming, not bakingFollow whatever cooking method the spinach pudding entry gives; puddings of this class are generally set in a covered mould or basin standing in simmering water so the eggs coagulate gently. Whatever the method, stop when the centre is just set — shrimp protein toughens fast.
- Season for the substitutionSpinach brings its own bitterness and moisture; shrimp brings salt. Taste the milk-and-crumb base before the eggs go in and adjust, with nutmeg, cayenne or mace as the period would have used, and hold back on added salt until you know how salty the shrimps are.
- The sauceShrimp and asparagus sauce means a white or béchamel-based sauce finished with whole picked shrimps and asparagus tips. Keep some shrimps back from the pint if you are making it, and add them to the sauce off the heat so they only warm through.
- YieldWith no quantities given beyond the pint of shrimps, the yield depends entirely on the spinach pudding proportions; expect something in the region of a light supper or savoury course for four to six, turned out of the mould and sliced.
Cassell's flags this as Danish, and it belongs to a wide northern European family of steamed savoury puddings — budding in Danish, a word generally taken to be a borrowing of the English one — built on breadcrumbs soaked in milk, bound with eggs and steamed in a mould. The technique is essentially a savoury version of the English bread pudding. Shrimps suited it particularly well in Denmark and along the North Sea coast, where tiny brown shrimps were landed in quantity. The entry's terseness is characteristic of Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, which was arranged alphabetically and leaned hard on cross-references, treating the book as a system rather than a sequence of self-contained recipes.