Plum Pudding
A pound and a half of combined flour and breadcrumbs; a pound and a half of chopped suet; a pound and a half of combined raisins (stoned) and currants; three-quarters of a pound of sugar; three-quarters of a pint of combined milk and eggs (say six eggs and the rest milk); three wineglassfuls of brandy; a quarter of a pound of chopped apples; a quarter of a pound of candied peel; half a teaspoonful of salt; half a nutmeg; half an ounce of mixed spice. Mix all thoroughly, tie it up in a floured cloth, put it into boiling water, and let it boil from five to six hours. These proportions will make two good-sized puddings, each of which will require to be boiled for the time given. Punch sauce.
POÊLE is a word much used in the French kitchen. It means a frying-pan; but originally it meant any small saucepan, and afterwards it was made to signify the contents of the saucepan, or at least the array of vegetables and condiments which were put into it for seasoning. In this sense, or indeed in any sense, the term has dropped out of the English language, but we find it five hundred years ago. In the Forme of Cury there is a receipt for "Hares in Papdele," which has greatly puzzled antiquarians. It is a corruption of "Hares in Padell." The Latin word for a saucepan was patella, which became padell in Old English, and paêle, afterwards poêle, in French. The assortment of vegetables which the French now understand by a poêle will be found among the Faggots-a Faggot of Pot-herbs.
Pork POIVRADE SAUCE is a peppery sauce. Put into a stewpan two or three sliced onions, two or three shalots, a clove of garlic, a carrot, a parsnip, a faggot of sweet-herbs, two cloves, some cayenne or long pepper, salt, a gill of vinegar, a pint of broth-and possibly a glass of red wine. Simmer it for an hour; add to it some roux made with one ounce of butter and one of flour; simmer for another half-hour, then strain it, skim it, and serve.
POLISH SAUCE is a highly decorated horseradish sauce. The more simple sauce is eaten with roast beef. This is supposed to belong to roast veal. Put the scrapings of a horseradish into some sauce Allemande, or into a Poulette sauce, with plenty of lemon-juice, a little grated lemonzest, chopped parsley, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and some sifted sugar.
PORK is so little to be seen at good tables, save in the form of ham and bacon, that it would seem to be a work of supererogation to refer to it. It is however eatenindeed, largely consumed-on the sly, and must have a word or two.
Roast Pork is scored to make the crackling, and is in the first instance put before the fire at a long distance, that it may be well heated through before the skin hardens. The reason of this is that pork takes more of the fire than any other meat, and there is danger of the outside being burnt before the interior is cooked. Sauces: sage-andonion sauce, together with apple sauce; or else sauce Robert by itself alone.
Pork Chops and Cutlets. - To be done precisely as those of mutton, only they must be done thoroughly. Thurtell ate pork chops before he committed the murder of Mr. William Weare.
A late-Victorian boiled plum pudding in the older style: no leavening, no treacle, and a very long boil. The proportions are sound; the method needs translating into modern equipment.
- The hinge: the water must never stop boilingThe floured cloth forms a skin that keeps the water out while the pudding cooks in the boiling water around it. Keep it at a full boil and top up from a kettle with boiling water, never cold, or the pudding sits heavy and soggy at the centre.
- Imperial measuresThis is a British book, so a pint is 20 fl oz and three-quarters of a pint is about 15 fl oz — six eggs plus enough milk to reach that. A gill (in the poivrade entry) is 5 fl oz. A wineglassful is conventionally about 2 fl oz, so three of brandy is roughly 175 ml.
- SuetBeef suet is still sold shredded and packaged; frozen block suet grated coarse is better if you can get it. Vegetarian shredded suet works, though it melts at a lower temperature and gives a slightly closer crumb.
- Mixed spiceHalf an ounce is about 14 g, roughly 2 tablespoons of the British blend — coriander, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cloves. American pumpkin-pie spice is a near enough substitute; the half nutmeg is grated in on top of it.
- The clothScald a square of unbleached cotton or calico, wring it, spread it flat and dust it thickly with flour before filling. Tie with a little room for the pudding to swell, and lower it into water already boiling. A greased basin of about 3 pints, covered with pleated parchment and foil, steamed rather than boiled, gives a tidier result if the cloth seems fussy.
- TimingFive to six hours is not exaggerated for a cloth pudding of this size, and with this much fat, fruit and sugar it will not dry out. Puddings of this type were often boiled long, hung to mature for weeks, then given a further hour or two before serving, though this recipe says nothing of keeping.
- YieldTwo puddings of roughly 3 to 3.5 lb each, serving eight to ten apiece. The book directs punch sauce; brandy butter or a rum-spiked custard is the usual modern accompaniment.
- Ignore the rest of the columnThe text runs on into unrelated dictionary entries for poêle, poivrade, Polish sauce and pork. Only the first paragraph belongs to the pudding.
Kettner's Book of the Table (1877), written anonymously by the journalist E. S. Dallas and named for Auguste Kettner's Soho restaurant, is arranged as an alphabetical dictionary rather than a cookery course. The "plum" in plum pudding has nothing to do with plums: in early modern English the word covered dried fruit generally, and raisins and currants in particular, a usage that survives in plum cake and plum duff. The dish is generally traced back to the spiced meat-and-fruit pottages of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the suet, breadcrumbs and boiling-cloth version settling into recognisable form during the eighteenth. Dallas gives it without ceremony and without mention of Christmas at all.