Home › Indian Hasty Pudding › Indian Hasty Pudding
Indian Hasty Pudding
1202. Place on the fire three quarts of boiling water, with a little salt; stir in by degrees three quarts of Indian-meal and a quarter of a pound of butter; it should be stirred till quite thick. Serve it hot, and eat it with milk or cream, treacle or sugar.
A plain cornmeal mush, the American branch of the English hasty pudding family. The proportions as printed will not work; everything else is straightforward.
- Indian meal is cornmeal"Indian" here means maize, not the subcontinent. Use a medium or coarse yellow cornmeal; fine degerminated meal gives a smoother, blander result and thickens faster.
- The proportions are out of rangeEqual volumes of water and meal — three quarts of each — would set into an unstirrable paste. Mush is normally one part meal to four or five parts water; with three quarts of water, that is about two and a half to three cups of meal for a spoonable pudding.
- Stirring in by degreesRain the meal into the boiling salted water in a thin stream while whisking, or slurry it first with a little cold water. Dumped in at once it lumps immediately and no amount of beating recovers it.
- Thick is not the same as cookedCoarse cornmeal thickens within a few minutes but still tastes raw and gritty. Keep it over low heat, stirring often, for 25 to 30 minutes so the starch fully gelatinises.
- Spitting potThick mush erupts in slow bubbles that carry a long way and burn. Use a heavy deep pan, the lowest workable heat, and a long spoon.
- TreacleTreacle in a British book of this date means dark cane syrup — molasses is the closest supermarket equivalent. Golden syrup, maple syrup or brown sugar all suit it.
- Yield and leftoversAt corrected proportions, three quarts of water makes enough for eight to ten as a breakfast or supper dish. Cold leftovers set firm in a loaf tin, slice, and fry in butter or bacon fat.