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Pudding, Boissy
Place in a saucepan three ounces arrowroot flour with a pint cold milk; stir well with a wooden spoon for one minute; then place the pan on the fire and continually stir until it comes to a boil. Remove, place on a table, add two egg yolks, briskly stir with a wooden spoon for one minute, then add one ounce well-picked currants, six candied cherries cut in quarters, one peeled and cored apple cut in small square pieces, one preserved peach cut in small squares; then pour in one tablespoon Swiss kirschwasser and one ounce fine sugar; gently mix for one minute. Beat the whites of the two eggs to a stiff froth and add to the preparation; gently mix for one minute. Lightly butter six pudding moulds and fill with the mixture; place in a baking tin with hot water up to half their height and set in the oven to bake for twenty minutes. Remove, unmould on a dish, pour a kirsch sauce over them and serve.
A small baked arrowroot custard studded with fruit, lightened with beaten whites and steamed in a water bath. The original assumes you know what a moderate oven and a pudding mould are, so those are worth pinning down.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given. A custard set in a bain-marie wants 325-350F; hotter and the egg curdles and the whites collapse before the centre sets.
- Arrowroot quantityThree ounces is a weight, not a volume, and comes to roughly 2/3 cup of arrowroot flour. With a pint (16 fl oz) of milk this makes a very stiff paste, closer to a thick pastry cream than a pouring custard, which is what allows the puddings to unmould.
- The hinge: yolks off the heatThe pan comes off the fire and is set on the table before the yolks go in. Beat them in vigorously and immediately; drop them into a still-boiling base without motion and you get threads of cooked egg through the pudding.
- Folding the whitesThe base is hot and heavy, so slacken it with a spoonful of the whites before folding in the rest. "Gently mix for one minute" means fold, not stir; the lift in these puddings comes entirely from the whites.
- Currants and preserved peachCurrants here are dried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants. A "preserved peach" is one put up in syrup, so drain it well and pat it dry or the excess syrup will loosen the mixture.
- KirschwasserSwiss kirsch is a dry, unsweetened cherry brandy, not a sweet cherry liqueur. One tablespoon across six puddings is a flavouring, and some of the alcohol cooks off.
- Moulds and water bathSix pudding moulds means individual dariole moulds of about 4 to 5 fluid ounces; ramekins work. Use boiling water in the tin, not warm, so the puddings begin setting at once, and line the tin with a folded cloth or paper to stop the bases scorching.
- UnmouldingLet them stand five minutes out of the water bath before turning out, then run a knife around the edge. Straight from the oven they are too fragile to hold their shape.
- The kirsch sauceNo sauce recipe is given with this pudding. In books of this period the term generally means a sugar syrup or thin custard flavoured with kirsch and served warm. Yield is six small puddings, one per person.
Filippini's International Cook Book catalogues dishes by a proper-name garnish or style in the French kitchen manner, and "Boissy" is one of dozens of such tags attached to sweet and savoury preparations alike; it is generally taken as a place or family name of the sort that names French dishes rather than any documented origin story, and the book gives no explanation. The substance of the recipe is more revealing than its name: arrowroot, imported from the West Indies and prized in the nineteenth century for making very smooth, delicate puddings that were thought suitable for invalids and children, is here dressed up for the restaurant table with candied cherries, preserved peach and Swiss kirsch. The combination of a starch-thickened base, egg yolks stirred in off the heat and beaten whites folded through is the standard hotel-kitchen route to a moulded pudding that would hold its shape on the plate.