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Tomato Pudding
Scald, peel, and slice eight tomatoes. Squeeze out three-quarters of their juice into a bowl through cheese cloth, and put it to one side; then chop up the pulp of the tomatoes with two tablespoons of bread crumbs, a little salt, sugar, and pepper, and a tablespoon of melted butter. Pour them in a buttered mold, place the mold in a double boiler, and put on the cover, and boil hard for one hour. Then turn out on a dish. Meanwhile take the juice of the tomatoes, season with sugar, salt, and pepper, mix in one tablespoon of butter rolled in flour. Boil one minute, then pour over the pudding and serve. String-beans "in Fricassea" Cut off the ends and string some young string-beans. Cook them in salted water, then drain them well. Put them in a salted water, then drain them well. Put them in a saucepan with some butter, parsley, and chopped onion. Be careful to add occasionally some broth if the beans dry up before they are completely cooked. Boil slowly, and a few moments before taking them off the fire add the yolks of one or two eggs (according to the quantity of beans) well beaten up with a little water, the juice of a lemon, and some grated Parmesan cheese. Stir from time to time, and never allow them to boil, or the eggs will set. To keep the beans a good color put a pinch of soda into the water with the salt.
String-beans with tomatoes Take some young string-beans, cut off the ends, and string them. Wash them in cold water, drain, and while still wet put them in cold water, drain, and while still wet put them into a baking-dish with some good olive-oil, some chopped onion and parsley, salt, and pepper. Put the dish on the fire with its cover on, and cook slowly. As the beans dry add the juice of some tomatoes, or some good tomato conserve. Take care they do not burn.
Three linked vegetable dishes from the same page: a steamed tomato pudding with a sauce made from its own juice, and two ways with green beans. The text carries a few printer's repetitions ("put them in a salted water, then drain them well. Put them in a saucepan…") which can be read straight through.
- The hinge: drain the tomatoes hardSqueezing out three-quarters of the juice is what allows the pudding to set at all, since the only binder is two tablespoons of crumbs. Press the pulp in the cheesecloth until it stops running, and reserve every drop of juice for the sauce.
- "Boil hard for one hour"The mold sits in the upper pan of a double boiler with the lid on, so this is steaming rather than boiling. Keep the water beneath at a full rolling boil for the whole hour and top it up with boiling water as it evaporates, or the pudding will not firm up.
- Choosing a moldA 3–4 cup metal or ceramic pudding basin, well buttered, is right for eight tomatoes. Butter it heavily and give it ten minutes to settle before turning out; a steamed vegetable pudding is fragile and will slump if inverted straight off the heat.
- TomatoesEight tomatoes of the period were probably ordinary round slicers, perhaps 2 to 2½ lb in all. Very watery greenhouse fruit will need firmer draining; paste tomatoes give a denser pudding but less juice for the sauce.
- Butter rolled in flourThis is beurre manié — a tablespoon of soft butter kneaded with roughly an equal amount of flour, dropped into the simmering juice in small pieces. The recipe's one minute at a boil is brief; taste before serving in case the flour still shows.
- The egg liaison in the fricassea"Never allow them to boil, or the eggs will set" is the whole instruction. Pull the pan off the heat, temper the beaten yolks with a spoonful of the hot cooking liquid, then stir them in off the fire; the residual heat thickens them. The lemon juice goes in beaten with the yolks, as the recipe directs.
- The pinch of sodaAlkaline water does hold the green, but it also softens pectin and turns beans mushy and slightly soapy. Modern practice is to boil them uncovered in well-salted water and cool them quickly instead.
- Beans with tomatoes"Put the dish on the fire" means a covered pan over low direct heat, not the oven. Wet beans plus oil and a closed lid effectively steam-braise them; expect 20–30 minutes for beans of the older, tougher sort, considerably less for slim modern ones.
- YieldThe pudding serves four as a side; each bean dish serves three or four from about a pound of beans.
Steamed savoury puddings in molds were more an Anglo-American habit than an Italian one — though Italian cooking has its own sformati and budini — and their appearance here says a good deal about the book: Simple Italian Cookery belongs to the wave of early twentieth-century volumes that translated Italian home cooking for English-speaking households, adapting it to their equipment and expectations along the way. The bean dishes are the more straightforwardly Italian of the three — in fricassea is a standard Italian term for a dish finished with an egg-and-lemon liaison, a technique associated chiefly with Tuscany and central Italy and shared with Greek avgolemono, while beans stewed in oil with onion, parsley and tomato conserve is ordinary domestic cooking of the peninsula. The instruction to reach for "good tomato conserve" when fresh juice is not to hand reflects a period when concentrated conserva, dried in the sun to a dark paste, was still a staple of the Italian pantry.