Raisin Cheese
INGREDIENTS.
To every lb. of raisins allow 1/2 lb. of loaf sugar; pounded cinnamon and cloves to taste.
Stone the raisins; put them into a stewpan with the sugar, cinnamon and cloves, and let them boil for 1½ hour, stirring all the time. Let the preparation cool a little, pour it into a glass dish, and garnish with strips of candied lemon-peel and citron.
This will remain good some time, if kept long piece for the sides; fasten the bottom in a dry place. and side-piece together by means of egg, and pinch the edges well together; then line the pie with forcemeat, put in a layer of veal, and a plentiful seasoning of salt, pepper, nutmeg and allspice; for, let it be remembered, these pies taste very insipid unless highly seasoned. Over the seasoning place a layer of sliced bacon or cooked ham, and then a layer of forcemeat, veal, seasoning and bacon, and so on until the meat rises to about an inch above the paste; taking care to finish with a layer of forcemeat, to fill all the cavities of the pie, and to lay in the meat firmly and compactly.
Brush the top edge of the pie with beaten TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Raisin Pudding, Baked. (Plain and Economical.) - INGREDIENTS for large pudding.-1 lb. of flour, 1/4 lb. of stoned raisins, 1/2 lb. of suet, a pinch of salt, 1 oz. of sugar, a little grated nutmeg, milk. AVERAGE COST, 1s.
Chop the suet finely; stone the raisins and cut them in halves; mix these with the suet, add the salt, sugar and grated nutmeg, and moisten the whole with sufficient milk to make it of the consistency of RAISIN PUDDING. thick batter. Put the pudding into a piedish, and bake for 1 hour, or rather longer. Turn it out of the dish, strew sifted sugar over, and serve. This is a very plain recipe, and suitable where there is a family of children. It, of course, can be much improved by the addition of candied peel, currants and rather a larger proportion of suet; a few eggs would also make the pudding richer.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE in the winter.
Raisin Pudding, Boiled. (Plain and Economical.) - INGREDIENTS for large pudding.-1 lb. of flour, 1/2 lb. of stoned raisins, 1/2 lb. of chopped suet, 1/2 saltspoonful of salt, milk. AVERAGE COST, 10d.
After having stoned the raisins, and chopped the suet finely, mix them with the flour, add the salt, and when these dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed, moisten the pudding with sufficient milk to make it into a rather stiff paste.
Tie it up in a floured cloth, put it into boiling water, and boil for 4 hours; serve with sifted sugar. This pudding may also be made in a long shape, the same as a rolled jam-pudding, and will not require quite so long boiling-2 hours RAISIN GRAPE. would then be quite sufficient.
TIME.-Made round, 4 hours; in a long shape, 24 hours.
SEASONABLE in the winter.
A "cheese" here is a stiff sweetened fruit paste, in the same family as damson cheese or quince paste, and contains no dairy at all. The method is short but the boiling stage needs watching.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a cone and broken or pounded down before use. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct equivalent, weight for weight, so 8 oz of sugar to every 1 lb of raisins.
- Stoning raisinsVictorian raisins were sold with seeds in and had to be split and picked out by hand. Modern seedless raisins skip the step entirely; if you want the flavour of the older fruit, use muscatel raisins.
- It needs liquidRaisins and sugar alone will catch and burn long before an hour and a half is up. Add enough water to cover the fruit at the start, keep the heat low, and stir steadily as it thickens; the mixture is ready when a spoon drawn through the bottom leaves a clear track.
- Spicing"Pounded" cinnamon and cloves means ground. Cloves are aggressive against raisins: start at a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon and an eighth of cloves per pound of fruit and taste before adding more.
- Moulding and turning outThe glass dish is the serving vessel, and the recipe's instruction to pour suggests a fairly soft set. If your paste does thicken enough, it can be turned out of a small basin or loaf tin lined with cling film and sliced, which is how fruit cheeses were often eaten, cut in thin slices like cheese.
- Candied peel garnishCandied citron is the peel of a thick-rinded citrus and is still sold, usually at Christmas or from Italian grocers. Candied lemon peel or mixed peel stands in for it.
- KeepingThe high sugar content and long reduction are what preserve it, but this is a fresh-made paste with no measured acidity, so keep it covered in the refrigerator and use within two or three weeks rather than trusting to a cool dry cupboard.
- YieldA pound of raisins with half a pound of sugar reduces to roughly 1 lb 4 oz of paste, enough for eight to ten small servings alongside cream or plain biscuits.
In English kitchens "cheese" also described any thick paste turned out of a mould and cut in slices: damson cheese, apple cheese, quince cheese, the last surviving today as Spanish membrillo. Mrs Beeton's household compendium carries several of them, and they belong to what is often said to be an older practice of preserving fruit by reducing it with sugar until it would stand up on a plate. A raisin version is the sign of a winter store cupboard rather than a garden glut: raisins came dried and shipped, chiefly from Spain, Greece and Turkey, and could be turned into a sweetmeat in any month, which is why an entry like this is marked as seasonable at any time.