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Cheese Pudding No. 2
6 ounces grated cheese 4 ounces mashed potatoes 1 ounce butter 3 ounces rice Pepper to taste Pick over the rice, and throw into boiling water; let it cook for half an hour, then drain, and when cool, line a pudding basin with the rice, and fill up with the following mixture: Mash the potatoes with the butter, add the grated cheese and seasoning, mix all together, and fill the basin. Put a greased paper on top, and steam for half an hour.
A steamed savoury pudding of the plain British sort: a rice casing around a potato-and-cheese filling, cooked in a basin over water. The whole thing depends on the rice being sticky enough to hold a wall.
- The hinge: sticky riceThe lining only works if the grains cling. Use a short or medium grain rice and do not rinse it; long-grain basmati will slide down the sides of the basin. The original's half-hour boil in plenty of water is what produced a soft, starchy grain, so err toward overcooking rather than al dente.
- Rice quantityThree ounces of raw rice is a scant half cup, which swells to roughly 1 1/2 cups cooked. That is just enough to line a small basin and no more, so press it thin and even.
- Pudding basinA 1 to 1 1/2 pint heatproof bowl, straight-sided and narrower at the base. A pyrex bowl or a 3-cup pudding mould does the same job. Grease it well before the rice goes in if you intend to turn the pudding out.
- Greased paperButtered parchment, pleated across the middle to allow for expansion, then tied or covered with foil. The point is to keep condensed steam off the surface, not to seal the basin.
- SteamingStand the basin on a trivet or folded cloth in a covered pan, with water coming a third of the way up the sides, at a bare simmer for 30 minutes. Top up with boiling water if it runs low.
- The cheeseThe recipe does not specify a variety; a firm English cheese such as Cheddar, Cheshire or Lancashire would suit. Six ounces of cheese to four ounces of potato is a very high proportion, so a sharp cheese carries the whole dish. Pre-shredded cheese with anti-caking starch will give a drier, grainier filling.
- SeasoningThe recipe calls only for pepper; no salt is listed, presumably on the assumption that the cheese supplies it. Taste the filling before it goes into the basin, and a little mustard powder or grated nutmeg is in keeping.
- YieldTwo servings as a main course with a green vegetable, three or four as a side. Let it stand five minutes before turning out, or serve it straight from the basin with a spoon.
The "Meat Substitutes" heading in Meatless Cookery is doing real work: this is not vegetarianism on principle but a cheese-and-potato dish presented as something that will stand in for a chop. The steamed pudding basin was the standard vessel for it, since a covered basin over a pan of water needed only one ring of heat and no oven at all. Numbering the recipe "No. 2" tells you the book carries more than one cheese pudding; the rice lining here is the economising touch, stretching six ounces of cheese into a full dish.