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Nut Pudding No. 3
4 ounces pine kernels 4 ounces almonds 4 ounces Brazil nuts 4 ounces walnuts Whites of 5 eggs Grind the nuts, and pound them in a mortar. Add the whites of eggs beaten stiff, and steam in a well greased basin for about five hours.
A savoury steamed nut pudding of the meat-substitute school — no sugar, no flour, nothing but ground nuts bound with egg white. It sets into a firm, sliceable loaf rather than anything custardy.
- The hinge: fold, don't stirThe stiff whites are the only binder and the only leavening. Beat them to firm peaks and fold them into the pounded nuts in two or three additions; if you beat them into the paste the pudding turns dense and greasy.
- QuantitiesFour ounces each of four nuts is 1 lb (about 450 g) of nuts. Five egg whites is about 5 fl oz (150 ml). The ground volume, and so the basin size, will depend on how finely the nuts are worked; fill the basin no more than three-quarters full. It makes a substantial main-course pudding, more sliced cold.
- "Basin" means a pudding basinA heatproof ceramic bowl with straight-ish sides, greased and filled no more than three-quarters full. Cover with pleated parchment and foil tied under the rim, or the condensation will waterlog the top.
- Mortar to machineGrind the nuts in a food processor in short pulses. The instruction to grind and then pound is aiming at an oily paste that will hold together — stop just before it becomes nut butter, or the pudding weeps fat.
- AlmondsThe recipe says only 'almonds'; sweet almonds, blanched, are the sensible reading. If your Brazil nuts and walnuts are not fresh they will taste rancid through the whole pudding; taste each nut before it goes in.
- Steaming timeFive hours is generous for a pudding this size. Set the covered basin on a trivet in a pan of simmering water reaching halfway up, and check at 2 hours — it is done when a skewer comes out clean and the centre feels firm. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates and never let the pan boil dry.
- Season itThe original gives no salt or aromatics at all. A teaspoon of salt, pepper, and a little grated onion or mace will make the difference between food and ballast.
- ServingTurn out and serve hot in slices with a brown or tomato sauce, or press under a weight overnight and serve cold, cut thin, like a terrine.
Vegetarian and meatless cookery books multiplied in the English-speaking world between the 1890s and the First World War, driven partly by organised vegetarianism and partly by food economy, and a standard approach to replacing a joint of meat was the nut loaf or nut pudding: ground nuts for fat and protein, egg or breadcrumb for structure, steamed in a basin as a suet pudding would be.