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Pineapple Pudding
Make a crust with one-quarter of a pound of suet chopped very fine (or beef marrow may be used, if desired), one-half pound of flour, and sufficient water to mix, using a knife for mixing and not the hands. With this line a greased basin, and put in about half a grated pineapple and a liquor-glassful of curacoa, which should about half fill it, then cover with a thin layer of the paste, pour over a sweetened custard prepared with a teacupful of milk and a couple of eggs, and flavored with a little noyau; cover it over with some more of the paste, and steam for an hour and a half.
A Victorian steamed suet pudding dressed up with tropical fruit and two liqueurs. The construction is the tricky part: it is built in layers inside a lined basin, not stirred together.
- Weights and the crust ratio4 oz suet to 8 oz flour is the standard 1:2 suet-crust proportion, and the recipe leaves the water open at 'sufficient to mix' -- expect somewhere around half a cup of cold water, added until it just comes together. Cutting it in with a knife rather than the hands keeps the suet in flakes and the fat off your warm fingers.
- Suet and marrowShredded beef suet from a butcher is best; packaged shredded suet (including vegetable suet) works directly. Marrow, the given alternative, is richer and softer and may give a denser crust.
- Liquid measuresA liquor-glass is roughly 1 to 1.5 fl oz, so about 2 to 3 tablespoons of curacao. A teacupful of milk is around 3/4 cup, which with two eggs makes a fairly rich custard.
- NoyauNoyau (creme de noyaux) is a kernel-flavored almond liqueur, still sold. Amaretto is the closest common substitute; use a teaspoon or two, since it is assertive.
- Half a pineapple, gratedSomething like a cup and a half of pulp with its juice; the recipe's own gauge is that it should about half fill the basin. Fresh pineapple contains bromelain, a protease that interferes with protein setting, but the long steam denatures it well before that matters. Canned crushed pineapple, drained, gives a tamer result.
- AssemblyLine a greased 1-quart pudding basin with two-thirds of the pastry, leaving an overhang. Pineapple and curacao go in first, then a pastry disc, then the custard, then the lid of pastry, sealed to the overhang. Seal it well or the custard will find the gap.
- Covering and steamingCover the basin with pleated parchment and foil, tied down, so condensation cannot get in. Steam in a covered pot with water halfway up the basin for 1 1/2 hours, topping up with boiling water as needed.
- YieldServes four to six. Rest it five minutes before turning out, and serve with cream or a thin custard sauce.
Steamed suet puddings built in a basin were the backbone of nineteenth-century English dessert cookery, and this one is that plain form given a hotel-dining-room upgrade: two imported liqueurs and fresh pineapple in place of the usual jam or dried fruit. Pineapple had shifted within living memory from a hothouse rarity, grown at great expense in English pineries or shipped at ruinous cost from the West Indies, to something a New York kitchen could buy by the crate once steamships and Caribbean and Florida growers made the trade routine. Oscar Tschirky, the maitre d'hotel whose name fronts this 1896 collection, gathered a great deal of European domestic cooking alongside the restaurant repertoire, and this pudding sits on the older, homelier side of that divide, with the fruit and the curacao doing the work of making it fashionable.