No. 3497

Romanoff Pudding

Pouding a la Romanoff

Make a chestnut cream the same as described for chestnut ice cream (No. 3465), having the chestnuts cooked with sugar. After this is frozen incorporate half the same quantity of whipped cream (No. 50). Have a two-quart pudding mold (Fig. 633) packed in salted ice, coat the interior with uncooked orange ice cream and fill the center in separate layers; first the chestnut ice cream, then lady fingers soaked in kummel and walnuts well drained from their juice and cut lengthwise in four; have the top layer of the ice cream; cover the mold. Freeze one hour and a half, and turn it out on a napkin. Serve a separate sauce of vanilla ice cream (No. 3458) flavored with kirsch, beating it well with whipped cream.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A bombe in all but name: a two-quart mold lined with orange ice cream and packed with chestnut parfait, soaked lady fingers and walnuts. Ranhofer assumes you have already made three other numbered recipes and have a tub of ice and rock salt at hand.

Work at the right temperatureThe whole thing hinges on the ice creams being at soft-set — firm enough to hold a lining, loose enough to spread. Freeze the mold hard first, line it fast with the orange ice cream, and return it to the ice between each layer; anything softer slumps into the layer below and you lose the striped cut.
What "uncooked" meansIn The Epicurean an uncooked ice cream is one built without a custard base — cream, sugar and flavouring only. The orange lining is therefore a plain cream ice; the chestnut and vanilla numbers he cross-references are given elsewhere in the book, and are not specified as uncooked here.
Chestnuts cooked with sugarPeeled chestnuts simmered with sugar until they crush to a paste. Jarred sweetened chestnut purée (crème de marrons) is a reasonable stand-in, but it is already heavily sugared — cut the sugar in the ice cream base accordingly, since too much sugar keeps the mixture from setting firm.
Half the quantity of whipped creamFolding whipped cream into the frozen chestnut ice cream by half its volume turns it into a parfait. It sets softer than a churned ice cream and cuts cleanly straight from the freezer, which is the point in a molded pudding.
Kümmel and kirschKümmel is a clear caraway-and-cumin liqueur, still made and still sweet; aquavit is the nearest substitute but drier. Kirsch is unsweetened cherry brandy, not cherry liqueur. Soak the lady fingers briefly — saturated ones freeze into a solid seam.
The walnuts are ambiguous"Well drained from their juice" points to walnuts preserved in syrup rather than dry shelled nuts, and quartering them lengthwise fits whole preserved halves. The original does not say which, so read it as candied or syrup-packed walnuts, drained and blotted so the moisture does not ice up.
Freezing timeAn hour and a half is right for a mold buried in ice and coarse salt; the recipe gives no proportions, though roughly three parts crushed ice to one of rock salt is the usual working ratio. In a domestic freezer at 0F allow six to eight hours, or overnight, and expect a harder set.
Turning outDip the mold in tepid water for a few seconds, wipe it, and invert onto the napkin. The recipe does not explain the napkin — a folded linen will absorb meltwater, whatever else it does for presentation. The vanilla-and-kirsch sauce, beaten with whipped cream, is served separately.
YieldA two-quart mold serves ten to twelve as written, in thin wedges. Ranhofer gives no count in this recipe.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York across the period 1862 to 1896, with an interruption in the 1870s, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in some 3,500 numbered entries — hence the cross-references to chestnut ice cream, whipped cream and vanilla ice cream rather than a self-contained ingredient list. Molded iced puddings and bombes were the ceremonial close of a long service menu, and naming them after royal houses, ambassadors and famous guests was common practice: the name presumably salutes the Russian imperial family, as does the later strawberries Romanoff. Chestnut and kirsch appear together often in French high-restaurant cooking of the period, and the layer of liqueur-soaked lady fingers connects the dish to the older family of iced charlottes.