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Currant Pudding
2 quarts currants 1 quart raspberries 1 lemon (juice) 1 cup tapioca Sugar Cook the fruit and lemon juice in just enough water to cover and strain after twenty-five minutes. Add sugar to taste, and the tapioca, and cook until clear. Pour into individual molds and set on ice to chill. Turn out in sauce dishes and serve with thin custard sauce. Serves 6.
A cooked-fruit jelly set with tapioca, closer to a Scandinavian rødgrød than to an English suet pudding. The success of it rests entirely on the type of tapioca and on how thoroughly it cooks out.
- Tapioca typeTapioca in a book of this period most likely meant quick-cooking (granulated) or small pearl, not the large boba pearls sold today. Small pearl needs soaking in cold water for about half an hour before it goes into the hot juice; quick-cooking goes straight in.
- Cook until clearThis is the hinge. The tapioca must lose every white opaque speck at its centre, or the chilled pudding will be gritty and will not set evenly. Expect 10 to 15 minutes of gentle simmering with frequent stirring, since it scorches readily.
- QuantitiesTwo quarts of currants is roughly 2 to 2½ lb of fruit, a quart of raspberries about 1¼ lb. The fruit is cooked with water to cover, so the amount of strained juice the cup of tapioca has to thicken depends on how much water went in.
- StrainingStrain but do not press hard, or pulp and seeds cloud the jelly. Currants carry a great deal of natural pectin, so the strained juice will already be slightly viscous before the tapioca goes in.
- Sugar\"To taste\" is doing a lot of work here. Red currants are sharply acid; a quart of this juice will take roughly 1 to 1½ cups of sugar. Sweeten while the liquid is hot so it dissolves fully.
- Setting\"Set on ice\" means the icebox or a bowl of ice water; refrigerate at least 4 hours, and overnight is better. Rinse the molds in cold water before filling so the pudding releases cleanly.
- Custard sauceA thin stirred custard, not a baked one: roughly 2 cups milk, 3 egg yolks and 3 tablespoons sugar cooked to about 175F over low heat, then chilled. It should coat a spoon thinly and pool around the turned-out pudding.
- CurrantsThese are fresh red or black currants, not dried Zante currants. If fresh ones are unavailable, frozen work well; do not substitute the dried fruit, which will not give juice.