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Steamed Chestnut Pudding
1 pound of chestnut pulp. 1/2 pint of cream. 1/4 pound of fresh butter. 1/4 pound of sugar. 8 yolks of eggs. 6 whites of eggs. Pinch of salt. Vanilla or almond flavoring.
Boil 1 1/4 pounds of chestnuts in water one hour. Peel them, scrape off the furry outside; and mash the kernels through a seive, moistening with hot cream. Mix all the other ingredients with this puree except the whites of eggs; the yolks having been well beaten before stirring in. Whip the whites firm, and lightly mix them in without beating. Steam in buttered moulds about one hour. Serve as soon as done, with diluted fruit jelly made hot for sauce, or else with French wine custard.
A rich chestnut soufflé-pudding of the sort a hotel pastry department would turn out in individual moulds. The method is sound; only the quantities and the vessels need translating.
- Chestnut yieldShelled and peeled fresh chestnuts come in around 75-80 percent of their in-shell weight, so 1 1/4 lb is about right for a pound of pulp if nothing is wasted; buy a little extra to allow for wormy or broken nuts, or use 1 lb of vacuum-packed peeled cooked chestnuts and skip the boiling and peeling entirely.
- The furry inner skinThis is the instruction that decides the pudding. The pellicle under the shell is bitter and fibrous, and it will not pass a sieve cleanly. Peel the nuts while still hot, keeping the rest in the hot water, and rub the skin off with a cloth.
- Half a pint of creamOne cup. It is used in two places: warm some of it to loosen the purée through the sieve, and beat the rest into the finished mixture. A food mill or ricer does the sieving faster than a drum sieve, but do pass it through something — a food processor gives a gluey purée.
- Weights1/4 lb butter is one stick; 1/4 lb sugar is about 1/2 cup plus a tablespoon by volume, so weigh it. The recipe calls for two more yolks than whites, which gives more custard body than an even count would; keep the proportions as written.
- Almond flavoringPeriod recipes sometimes meant bitter almond, which contains cyanogenic compounds. Use ordinary almond extract, sparingly — a teaspoon at most against this much chestnut — or a split vanilla bean steeped in the cream.
- SteamingButter the moulds well and dust them with sugar. Fill three-quarters full, cover each with a buttered paper or foil, and set them in a covered pan on a rack with water reaching halfway up. Keep the water at a bare simmer; a hard boil makes the pudding rise and then collapse.
- Time and donenessAn hour suits a single large mould of about 1 1/2 quarts. Individual 6 oz moulds are done in 25-35 minutes, when the centre is just set and a skewer comes out clean. Serve at once, as directed — like a soufflé, it sinks as it cools.
- Yield and sauceProbably enough for eight or so, though the recipe states no yield. "Diluted fruit jelly made hot" is simply currant or apricot jelly loosened with a little water or wine and warmed; "French wine custard" is a sabayon — yolks, sugar and white wine or Madeira whisked over hot water until thick.
Chestnuts were a cheap autumn starch across southern Europe long before they were a luxury, and nineteenth-century French pastry work built a whole vocabulary on them: purée de marrons, marrons glacés, the chestnut-thickened puddings and Nesselrode creams that filled hotel dessert menus. The eight yolks, the folded whites, the buttered moulds and the wine custard all belong to that French repertoire. A steamed pudding sent out hot with a jelly or sabayon sauce was familiar late-autumn and winter service at a time when the dessert course still leaned heavily on things cooked in a bain-marie.