Baked Farina
Heat one and one-half pints of milk in a double boiler. Into this stir, slowly, one-half pint of farina. Add a teaspoon of salt, (level) and one-half pint of chopped pecan nuts. Stir constantly and when the mixture commences to thicken pour it into a baking-dish suitable to place on the table, and bake twenty minutes in a quick oven. This is excellent as a supper or luncheon dish.
A plain milk porridge stiffened in the pan and finished in the oven. The whole thing turns on the ratio and on how quickly farina swells, so read the timing notes before you start.
- What farina isFarina is finely milled hard wheat, sold today as Cream of Wheat or as fine semolina. Instant or quick-cooking versions absorb liquid much faster and will seize almost the moment they hit the milk; use the regular grind.
- The measurements in cupsOne and a half pints of milk is 3 cups; half a pint of farina is 1 cup; half a pint of chopped pecans is likewise 1 cup. That is a 3:1 liquid-to-grain ratio, which gives a firm, sliceable pudding rather than a loose cereal.
- A quick ovenRoughly 400 to 425F. Twenty minutes at that heat sets the surface and lightly browns the top; most of the farina's cooking has already happened in the double boiler.
- Add the farina in a thin streamThis is the hinge. Farina lumps instantly if it goes in as a mass. Pour it in a slow steady stream with the spoon or whisk moving, and keep stirring until it visibly thickens; over a water bath this can take ten minutes or more.
- Pour while it is still fluid"Commences to thicken" is the cue, not "is thick." Off the heat it stiffens fast, and a mixture left too long in the pan will have to be pressed into the dish rather than poured, which gives a dense result.
- The saltA level teaspoon in 3 cups of milk is on the assertive side by modern taste, particularly with sweet pecans. Half a teaspoon suits most palates, with more added at the table.
- The dishA shallow gratin dish or 8-inch square baking dish gives more browned surface than a deep one, which is the point of the oven stage. Butter it well; farina sticks.
- Yield and servingServes four to six. It is unsweetened as written, so send it out with maple syrup, cream, or stewed fruit, or serve it savoury alongside ham or roast poultry.
Farina belongs to the wave of milled wheat cereals that spread across American breakfast tables in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when roller milling made fine, uniform semolina cheap and shelf-stable. The Butterick Cook Book (1911) came out of the same publishing house as the dress patterns, aimed at a middle-class housekeeper cooking without much help. Baking a cooked porridge to serve as a supper or luncheon dish, rather than at breakfast, would stretch a small quantity of milk and nuts into a hot dish. The pecans suggest an American setting; European versions of the same baked semolina pudding are generally sweetened and set with eggs.