Vermicelli Pudding
INGREDIENTS for pudding for 6 persons.-4 oz. of vermicelli, 1½ pint of milk, 1/2 pint of cream, 3 oz. of butter, 3 oz. of sugar, 4 eggs. AVERAGE COST, without cream, 1s.
Boil the vermicelli in the milk until it is tender; then stir in the remaining ingredients, omitting the cream, if not obtainable. Flavour the mixture with grated lemon-rind, essence of bitter almonds, or vanilla; butter a pie-dish; line the edges with puff-paste, put in the pudding, and bake in a moderate oven for about 1/2 hour.
TIME. hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
VENISON, STEWED.
A baked milk pudding of the same family as rice or sago pudding, thickened with fine pasta and enriched with eggs, butter and cream. The one thing to watch is the eggs: the vermicelli must be off the boil before they go in, or the custard curdles.
- Vermicelli here means wheat pastaIn Victorian English usage this is the fine Italian wheat vermicelli, sold in coils or bundles, not rice noodles. Break 4 oz (about 115 g) of the thinnest wheat vermicelli or capellini into short lengths.
- Imperial pintsA British pint is 20 fl oz, so 1½ pint of milk is 30 fl oz, about 3½ US cups or 850 ml, and ½ pint of cream is 10 fl oz or 285 ml. Using US pints will leave the pudding noticeably stiff.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 350F / 180C. The pudding is set, not browned hard, so a lower shelf and a light cover of foil for the first half hour keeps the surface pale.
- The eggsTake the pan of milk and softened vermicelli off the heat and let it drop below a simmer, then beat the eggs with the cream and sugar and stir them in. Added to boiling milk they scramble.
- Cooking the pastaFine vermicelli softens in the milk in 6 to 8 minutes over low heat, stirring often to stop it sticking and the milk catching. It will absorb a good deal of the milk and the mixture should pour thickly.
- Almond flavouringModern almond extract, whether from benzaldehyde or from processed apricot kernels, is what to use for the "essence of bitter almonds". Half a teaspoon is enough for this quantity. Do not attempt to make an essence from raw bitter almonds or kernels at home.
- The puff-paste edgeLining only the rim of the dish with puff pastry was standard for baked puddings; it gives a crisp border and a neat finish. A single strip of bought all-butter puff pressed round the buttered rim does the job, and it can be left out altogether.
- Time and yieldThe stated baking time has not survived in the text. A pudding of this depth in a moderate oven needs roughly 45 minutes to an hour, until set at the centre with only a slight wobble. It serves six, as the original states, and is best warm rather than hot.
Baked milk puddings thickened with a starch — rice, sago, tapioca, semolina, macaroni or vermicelli — form one of the largest families in Victorian English cookery books, and Mrs Beeton's household audience would have known most of them as nursery and family food rather than company dishes. Vermicelli reached English kitchens as an imported Italian dry pasta from the eighteenth century onward and was treated much like any other starch for thickening soups and sweet puddings, which is why it appears here in cream and eggs with no hint of savoury Italian usage. The costing of one shilling "without cream" is characteristic of the book: cream was a variable luxury depending on where a household stood and what the dairy could supply, so the recipe is written to work without it and priced accordingly.