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Queer Times Pudding
INGREDIENTS for pudding for 3 or 4 persons. pint of golden syrup, 1/2 pint of water, 2 teaof golden syrup, pint of water, 2 teaspoonfuls of carbonate of soda, a teaspoonful of salt, flour. AVERAGE COST, 3d.
Mix the syrup, water, salt and soda together, and add enough flour to make a rather stiff batter. Tie the pudding in a cloth loosely, that it may have room to swell, and boil for 3 hours.
TIME.-3 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Quenelles. (For Turtle and other Soups.) INGREDIENTS for sufficient for 6 quarts of soup.-1½ lb. of lean fillet of veal, 1 lb. of beef suet, 6 oz. of panada, 1 teaspoonful of salt, seasoning of pepper and nutmeg, 4 eggs. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 10d.
Cut the veal in long, thin slices, and scrape them with a knife till nothing but the fibre remains, then put it in a mortar, pound it to a paste, which pass through a wire sieve (what remains will do for stock); skin, shred and chop the suet fine, then pound it, adding the panada and pounding them well together. Add the veal and the seasoning, and work all well together, then the eggs slowly, continuing the pounding.
QUINCE JELLY.
When well mixed, take a small piece in a spoon and poach it, and if it is delicate, firm and of a good flavour, it is ready for use.
An economy pudding of the plainest sort: syrup, water, soda and flour, boiled in a cloth. The ingredient list as printed repeats itself and the liquid quantities do not agree, so treat the proportions below as a guide and work by the texture of the batter.
- The quantities are unreliableThe list gives golden syrup and water twice over, once with a fraction and once without, so no single reading is authoritative. A workable interpretation is half a pint of syrup to half a pint of water; add flour until the batter is stiff enough to hold a spoon upright rather than measuring it.
- Flour is unmeasured on purposeHow much you need depends on which reading of the liquid you follow, so judge by texture rather than weight. Stop when the mixture is a heavy, sticky dough-batter that drops from the spoon reluctantly; too slack and it will leak through the cloth.
- Two teaspoonfuls of soda is a great dealIn cookery books of this period 'carbonate of soda' is generally taken to mean what we now call bicarbonate of soda, though strictly the two are not the same chemical. This much soda is what lifts a pudding with no eggs or suet, helped by the mild acidity of the syrup as well as by the heat. It also leaves a soapy, faintly metallic edge; one teaspoon gives a cleaner flavour with only slightly less lift.
- The clothUse a square of scalded calico or a tea towel, wrung out in boiling water and dusted generously with flour on the inside face. Tie loosely as directed, since the soda makes the pudding swell considerably, but tie the knot tight enough that water cannot seep in.
- BoilingKeep the pan at a steady boil for the full three hours, with the pudding clear of the base (a saucer or trivet underneath) and boiling water topped up as it falls. If the water is allowed to go off the boil for long the centre will be underdone and gluey.
- A basin is easierThe same batter steams well in a buttered pudding basin, covered with pleated greaseproof and foil, for the same three hours. It gives a neater shape and removes the risk of a leaking cloth.
- ServingIt feeds three or four and is dry eating on its own. Custard, warmed golden syrup, or a jug of milk are the usual accompaniments.
The name is usually read as a reference to hard times -- 'queer' in the sense of difficult -- though the book gives no explanation of it. There is no egg, no butter, no suet and no sugar beyond the syrup itself, and the average cost is given as threepence. The lift comes from carbonate of soda, helped by the mild acidity of golden syrup, a combination British cooks turned to when eggs and fat were dear or rationed, and puddings of this pattern recur under various names in the war years. Golden syrup, a by-product of cane sugar refining, was sold in tins by Lyle from the mid-1880s and suited households that could not keep butter or eggs in the larder; it supplies sweetness and moisture, and its acidity is what sets the soda working.