No. 3205

Boissy Pudding

Pouding Boissy

Dilute four ounces of corn starch in a bowl with three gills of cold milk; on this pour a quart of boiling milk sweetened with six ounces of sugar; turn the whole into a saucepan and set it on the fire to stir until well thickened; take it off and incorporate into it quickly one gill of kirsch, the grated peel of a lemon, a salpicon of preserved fruits cut in dice, such as pears, pineapple, green almonds, and cherries cut in two, besides a few seeded Malaga raisins and six stiffly beaten fresh egg-whites. As soon as the preparation is sufficiently mixed pour it into a plain timbale mold oiled over with sweet almond oil, and leave it to harden in the ice-box for an hour and a half. When prepared to serve invert the pudding on a cold dish; cover with raspberry sauce (No. 3217), serving more of it apart.

← No. 3204 Rhubarb Pie and Rhubarb with Cream Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3206 Castellane Pudding →

For the Modern Kitchen

A molded cornstarch blancmange dressed up with candied fruit and kirsch, from the Delmonico's kitchen. Nothing here is difficult, but the measurements are by weight and the old vessel names need translating.

Gills and quartsA gill is half a cup: three gills of cold milk is 1½ cups, and the gill of kirsch is a full ½ cup. The quart of boiling milk plus the 1½ cups cold makes about 5½ cups of liquid in all.
Four ounces of cornstarchThat is weight, not volume — somewhere between ⅞ cup and a full cup, depending how it is scooped. It is a firm ratio, deliberately so, since the pudding has to stand up when turned out of the mold.
The hinge: cook the starch outStir over the heat until the mixture is thick and has lost any raw, chalky taste, a good two to three minutes at a bare simmer after it thickens. Undercooked cornstarch weeps as the pudding chills and the unmolded shape slumps.
The egg whitesSix stiff whites are folded into a base that is still very hot, which may partially cook them, but the kirsch and cold fruit pull the temperature down fast, so treat the whites as essentially raw. If anyone at the table should avoid undercooked egg, use pasteurized whites.
Salpicon and green almondsA salpicon is simply an even small dice. "Green almonds" here means candied unripe almonds, essentially unfindable now; candied angelica, citron or crystallized ginger stands in. Malaga raisins are large muscat raisins — seedless muscats or golden raisins do the job.
Mold and oilA plain timbale mold is a drum-shaped mold, usually plain-sided and sometimes slightly tapered; allow about 2 quarts capacity, which a charlotte mold or a large loaf pan will meet. Sweet almond oil is a neutral, faintly nutty oil sold for baking and for cosmetics — any flavorless oil will release the pudding as well.
Chilling timeThe recipe allows an hour and a half in the ice-box. In a domestic refrigerator give it four hours, or overnight, before attempting to invert it.
YieldClose to 2 quarts of pudding, which serves eight to ten. The raspberry sauce is Ranhofer's own No. 3217, given elsewhere in the book; any good raspberry coulis is in the same spirit.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its dessert chapters run on for pages of near-identical molded creams distinguished mainly by their garnish and their name — Castellane, Boissy, Nesselrode, and dozens more, honoring patrons, diplomats and the occasional French place-name. The technique underneath is the old blancmange: milk set firm with starch rather than gelatin, a method that remained useful in a restaurant because it holds its shape reliably and can be turned out in quantity. What marks this one as late nineteenth century rather than earlier is the candied fruit salpicon and the generous pour of kirsch, both signatures of the elaborate entremets froids that closed a long service menu, and both dependent on the imported preserved fruits that a Manhattan luxury kitchen could count on having in the pantry year round.