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Admiral Pudding
8 ounces of potatoes 12 ounces of carrots 4 ounces of sugar 7 ounces of flour or bread crumbs 3 ounces mixed candied peel 4 ounces butter 8 ounces of sultanas Pass the carrots and potatoes when cooked through a sieve; add the butter chopped fine, and flour or bread crumbs. Mix well, then add the sultanas, sugar and candied peel, put into a well greased mold, and steam for five hours. Serve with lemon or sweet sauce.
A suetless, eggless steamed pudding built on cooked root vegetables — the sort of thing that shows up whenever fat and dried fruit are scarce. It works, but the timings and measures need translating.
- Weigh, do not measureEvery quantity is given by weight, and the ratios matter: 20 oz of vegetable purée against 7 oz of flour or crumbs is what keeps the pudding moist rather than sodden. Use a scale (8 oz = 225 g, 12 oz = 340 g, and so on) rather than converting to cups.
- The vegetables go in cooked and dryBoil or steam the potatoes and carrots until soft, drain thoroughly, and let the steam escape before sieving. Wet purée is the main cause of a heavy, gluey pudding, since there is no egg here to set the crumb.
- Five hours is far longer than neededFive hours is likely longer than needed -- everything in the bowl is either already cooked or needs only to be set by heat, and two and a half to three hours of steady steaming should give a comparably firm result. Long steaming times of this kind are usual in older recipes, though the reason is not stated here.
- Butter in place of suetChopping cold butter fine and rubbing it into the flour or crumbs mimics shredded suet. It will not give quite the same open, fluffy texture — expect something denser and closer-grained, which is what this pudding is meant to be.
- Filling the moldGrease well, fill no more than two-thirds, and cover with a pleated layer of parchment and foil (or a floured cloth) tied under the rim. There is no raising agent, so the rise is slight, but condensation dripping in will ruin the top.
- Keep the water at a bare simmerWater should come halfway up the mold and be topped up from a kettle of boiling water as it drops. A rolling boil will rock the mold and force water past the cover.
- Sultanas and peelSultanas are usually sold as golden raisins in the US; ordinary raisins work. Mixed candied peel generally means citron, orange and lemon; modern pre-chopped tubs can be quite sweet and soft, so taste and cut the sugar slightly if you wish.
- Yield and servingEnough for six to eight; allow a basin of at least 1.5 litres (2½ pints), and larger if following the two-thirds fill rule above. Turn out hot; a thin lemon sauce, a custard, or brandy butter all suit it. Leftovers reheat well by steaming for twenty minutes.
Puddings like this belong to the long tradition of using sweet root vegetables to stretch or replace expensive ingredients — carrots appear as a sweetening element in English puddings from the eighteenth century, and potatoes turn up as a flour-extender in later kitchens for the same reason. What is notable here is the absence of suet and eggs: a Christmas-style fruit pudding built without them. The name appears decorative rather than descriptive, and nothing in the recipe suggests a naval connection.