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Macaroni Pudding, Sweet
INGREDIENTS for pudding for 6 persons. - 2½ oz. of macaroni, 2 pints of milk, the rind of 1/2 lemon, 3 eggs, sugar and grated nutmeg to taste, 2 tablespoonfuls of brandy. AVERAGE COST, 1s.
Put the macaroni, with a pint of the milk, into a saucepan, with the lemon-peel, and let it simmer gently until the macaroni is tender; then put it MACARONI. into a pie-dish without the peel; mix the other pint of milk with the eggs; stir these well together, adding the sugar and brandy and pour ur the mixture over the macaroni. Grate a little nutmeg over the top and bake in a moderate oven for 1/2 hour.
To make this pudding look nice, a paste should be laid round the edges of the dish; and, for variety, a layer of preserve or marmalade may be placed on the macaroni: in this case, omit the brandy.
TIME.-1 hour to simmer the macaroni, 1/2 hour to bake the pudding.
SEASONABLE at any time.
This is a baked milk custard with macaroni standing in for rice or sago. Two details matter most: the pasta of 1861 was not the pasta of today, and a custard baked too hot will curdle.
- Moderate ovenThe book gives no temperature; a moderate oven is usually taken today as somewhere around 325-350F. A custard set much above that will scramble and weep; if your oven runs hot, stand the pie-dish in a roasting tin of hot water.
- The one-hour simmerThe hour suggests a much harder, thicker macaroni than we buy now, likely long-cut and long-stored. Modern dried macaroni needs 10-15 minutes in the pint of milk to become tender, and will collapse into paste if given the full hour. Long-cut macaroni snapped into lengths is closer to what Beeton meant than elbows.
- Milk absorptionThe pasta drinks up a good deal of the first pint as it cooks. Keep the heat very low, stir often to stop it catching, and add a splash more milk if the pan goes dry before the macaroni softens.
- Quantities2 1/2 oz macaroni is about 70 g — a small handful for 2 imperial pints (about 1.14 litres, or roughly 4 3/4 US cups) of milk. This is a custard with pasta in it, not a pasta bake. Sugar to taste is unquantified; something like 2-3 oz (55-85 g) suits that amount of milk.
- Temper the custardThe recipe does not say to heat the second pint, so it goes in unwarmed, which is also the safest course. If you do warm it, let it cool before beating in the eggs, or strain the mixture after mixing.
- A paste round the edgesThis is a decorative border of shortcrust or puff pastry pressed onto the rim of the dish, browning as the pudding bakes. Purely ornamental, and easily omitted.
- Preserve versionSpread the jam or marmalade over the macaroni in the dish before pouring on the custard, and leave out the brandy as directed.
- Doneness and servingThe recipe gives half an hour; bake until the custard is just set with a slight wobble at the centre. Serves six.