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Vermicelli Pudding No. 2
1 pint of milk 2 ounces of vermicelli 2 tablespoons of sugar Grated rinds of 2 lemons Put the milk in a double saucepan, and let it come to boiling point; then sprinkle in the vermicelli, breaking it up a little in doing so. Allow it to boil gently in the milk till it is clear and soft and about twice its original size. Then add the sugar and grated lemon rinds. Pour the mixture in the greased basin or mold, cover with greased paper, and steam gently for about half an hour. Turn out carefully, and serve hot, garnished with orange fritters.
A milk-and-pasta pudding of the older English type, thickened by starch alone with no egg. Two things decide whether it succeeds: cooking the vermicelli long enough that it swells and turns translucent, and letting the steamed pudding rest before you try to unmold it.
- The pint is ambiguousThe idiom here (double saucepan, greased basin) is British, where a pint is 20 fl oz; an American pint is 16. Either works, but 20 fl oz gives a looser pudding and 16 a firmer one that unmolds more reliably.
- Double saucepanA double boiler — a bowl or upper pan over simmering water. It exists in this recipe only to keep milk from scorching or catching on the bottom, which matters when starchy pasta is cooking in it.
- Vermicelli means wheat pastaFine wheat vermicelli, sold in nests or long coils, not rice vermicelli. Two ounces is about 55 g. Rice noodles will dissolve into paste in hot milk and give you a different dish entirely.
- Cook it fully in the milk"Clear and soft and about twice its original size" is the real instruction; expect 10 to 15 minutes of gentle cooking with frequent stirring. Undercooked vermicelli will not release its starch, and the pudding will not hold together when turned out.
- Lemon rindGrated rind means zest only, no white pith, and two lemons' worth is assertive by design. Add it off the heat with the sugar so the oils are not driven off.
- Steaming a basin puddingGrease the mold, fill it, cover with greased paper (parchment now), and set it in a pan of simmering water reaching halfway up the sides, lid on. Keep the water at a bare simmer for the half hour; a hard boil makes the outside weep.
- UnmoldingWith no egg to bind it, the pudding is held only by starch. Let it stand 5 to 10 minutes off the heat, run a knife around the edge, then invert onto a warm plate. If it slumps, serve it spooned from the basin rather than fighting it.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; a pint of milk with 2 oz of vermicelli would stretch to three or four modest servings. The orange fritters are presumably a separate preparation taken from elsewhere; poached orange slices, marmalade, or a spoonful of orange syrup fills the same role.
Milk puddings built on a starch — rice, sago, tapioca, semolina, macaroni or vermicelli — were a staple of cheap British and American nursery and boarding-house cookery through the nineteenth century, and vermicelli pudding appears in household manuals well before pasta was common in English kitchens for savory use. Fine wheat vermicelli was sold as a dry store-cupboard good, valued in the same way as sago or tapioca: it kept well, cost little, and swelled considerably in milk. A pudding leaning on milk, sugar, wheat starch and lemon zest needed no eggs at all, which is much of its appeal in economical cookery.