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Cheese Pudding No. 1
1/2 pound bread crumbs 1 pint milk 1/2 pound grated cheese Pepper and salt to taste Prepare the cheese, which should be a stale Gruyere or Cheddar, add it to the bread crumbs, warm the milk, and pour it over the cheese and bread crumbs; add the seasoning. When the mixture is cool, put into a pudding basin, and steam for about half an hour.
A steamed cheese pudding with no eggs and no flour — the bread crumbs and the milk do all the binding, so the proportions matter more than the technique.
- Weights into volumesHalf a pound of soft fresh crumbs is roughly 4 loosely packed cups; half a pound of grated cheese is about 2 cups. Whether the pint is the 16-ounce US measure or the 20-ounce imperial one is not settled by the recipe itself.
- Crumb type changes everythingThe recipe most likely means soft crumbs from a day-old loaf rather than the dry sandy crumbs sold in canisters. Dry crumbs will drink the milk and set stiff, so use fresh bread or expect to add more milk.
- "Stale" cheeseStale means aged and dry, not spoiled — a firm well-matured Gruyère or a sharp block Cheddar. Young rubbery cheese gives a bland, greasy pudding, and pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch that dulls the texture.
- Why it must cool firstThe recipe has the mixture stand until cool before it goes into the basin; the likely reason is to let the crumbs swell and take up the milk.
- Setting up the basinButter a heatproof ceramic or glass bowl of at least 1 1/2 quarts, fill it no more than three-quarters, and cover tightly with pleated parchment or foil tied under the rim so condensation cannot drip in. Stand it on a trivet or folded cloth in a deep pot with boiling water reaching halfway up the sides, lid on, water at a bare simmer.
- Half an hour is the minimumTiming -- The recipe gives about half an hour, which suits a shallow basin; a deeper one may want longer. It is done when the centre is hot through and just set to a wobble. Top up with boiling water if the pot runs low.
- Seasoning worth addingPepper and salt alone leave it flat. Dry mustard and a pinch of cayenne turn up in other period cheese dishes and will sharpen this one.
- Yield and servingServes four as a main course with a green vegetable, six as a side. It is soft and spoonable rather than sliceable — turn it out onto a warm dish and serve at once, as it stiffens and turns grainy on standing.
Cheese puddings of this kind belong to the long British tradition of the steamed basin pudding, and cheese was a standard stand-in for meat in chapters of meatless or economical cookery. The numbering -- No. 1 -- is a common habit of such compilations, which often print more than one version of the same dish.