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Irish Moss Blanc-Mange
1/3 cup Irish moss 4 cups milk 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla Soak moss fifteen minutes in cold water to cover, drain, pick over, and add to milk; cook in double boiler thirty minutes; the milk will seem but little thicker than when put on to cook, but if cooked longer blanc-mange will be too stiff. Add salt, strain, flavor, re-strain, and fill individual moulds previously dipped in cold water; chill, turn on glass dish, surround with thin slices of banana, and place a slice on each mould. Serve with sugar and cream.
A milk pudding set with carrageen seaweed rather than gelatin or cornstarch. The whole recipe hinges on not overcooking it, and the original is right to warn you the mixture will look far too thin when it comes off the heat.
- Irish mossThis is dried carrageen (Chondrus crispus), sold in health-food shops, Irish grocers and online, usually as whole bleached fronds. It is not the same as powdered carrageenan gum, which is far more concentrated and will not behave the same way by volume.
- Measuring 1/3 cupThe measure is of dry, loosely packed fronds, roughly 1/4 to 1/3 oz by weight. Carrageen swells enormously; do not pack it into the cup.
- Pick over means pick overBeach-harvested moss carries sand, shell fragments and stray bits of other weed. After soaking, spread it out and go through it by hand, then rinse again. Grit that gets into the milk will not strain out cleanly.
- The thirty minutes is a ceilingCarrageen releases its gelling polysaccharides quickly, and the set continues to firm as it chills. If the milk visibly thickens like a custard on the stove, it has gone too far and the pudding will be rubbery. Thin and barely coating the spoon is correct.
- Double boilerUse one, or a bowl over simmering water. Direct heat scorches the milk over half an hour, and scorched milk cannot be strained out.
- Flavor off the heatThe original adds the vanilla after cooking and straining, once the mixture is off the stove. Some of an alcohol-based extract's aroma will be driven off if it is stirred into very hot milk on the fire.
- Two strainingsThe first strain removes the spent moss; the original does not say what the second is for, though it would catch anything the first missed. A fine-mesh sieve is enough; cheesecloth will slow you down and the mixture must be poured before it begins to set.
- Moulds and unmouldingWetting the moulds is what lets the pudding release. Small ramekins or teacups of about 1/2 cup work; chill at least four hours, and dip the outside briefly in warm water if a mould is stubborn.
- YieldFour cups of milk fills six to eight individual moulds. Slice the bananas just before serving, as they brown quickly against the pale pudding.