The American Frugal Housewife Part 9

BOILED INDIAN PUDDING.

Indian pudding should be boiled four or five hours. Sifted Indian meal and warm milk should be stirred together pretty stiff. A little salt, and two or three great spoonfuls of mola.s.ses, added; a spoonful of ginger, if you like that spice. Boil it in a tight covered pan, or a very thick cloth; if the water gets in, it will ruin it. Leave plenty of room; for Indian swells very much. The milk with which you mix it should be merely warm; if it be scalding, the pudding will break to pieces. Some people chop sweet suet fine, and warm in the milk; others warm thin slices of sweet apple to be stirred into the pudding. Water will answer instead of milk.

FLOUR OR BATTER PUDDING.

Common flour pudding, or batter pudding, is easily made. Those who live in the country can beat up five or six eggs with a quart of milk, and a little salt, with flour enough to make it just thick enough to pour without difficulty. Those who live in the city, and are obliged to buy eggs, can do with three eggs to a quart, and more flour in proportion. Boil about three quarters of an hour.

BREAD PUDDING.

A nice pudding may be made of bits of bread. They should be crumbled and soaked in milk over night. In the morning, beat up three eggs with it, add a little salt, tie it up in a bag, or in a pan that will exclude every drop of water, and boil it little more than an hour.

No puddings should be put into the pot, till the water boils. Bread prepared in the same way makes good plum-puddings. Milk enough to make it quite soft; four eggs; a little cinnamon; a spoonful of rose-water, or lemon-brandy, if you have it; a tea-cupful of mola.s.ses, or sugar to your taste, if you prefer it; a few dry, clean raisins, sprinkled in, and stirred up thoroughly, is all that is necessary. It should bake or boil two hours.

RENNET PUDDING.

If your husband brings home company when you are unprepared, rennet pudding may be made at five minutes' notice; provided you keep a piece of calf's rennet ready prepared soaking in a bottle of wine. One gla.s.s of this wine to a quart of milk will make a sort of cold custard.

Sweetened with white sugar, and spiced with nutmeg, it is very good.

It should be eaten immediately; in a few hours, it begins to curdle.

CUSTARD PUDDINGS.

Custard puddings sufficiently good for common use can be made with five eggs to a quart of milk, sweetened with brown sugar, and spiced with cinnamon, or nutmeg, and very little salt. It is well to boil your milk, and set it away till it gets cold. Boiling milk enriches it so much, that boiled skim-milk is about as good as new milk. A little cinnamon, or lemon peel, or peach leaves, if you do not dislike the taste, boiled in the milk, and afterwards strained from it, give a pleasant flavor. Bake fifteen or twenty minutes.

RICE PUDDINGS.

If you want a common rice pudding to retain its flavor, do not soak it, or put it in to boil when the water is cold. Wash it, tie it in a bag, leave plenty of room for it to swell, throw it in when the water boils, and let it boil about an hour and a half. The same sauce answers for all these kinds of puddings. If you have rice left cold, break it up in a little warm milk, pour custard over it, and bake it as long as you should custard. It makes very good puddings and pies.

BIRD'S NEST PUDDING.

If you wish to make what is called 'bird's nest puddings,' prepare your custard,--take eight or ten pleasant apples, pare them, and dig out the core, but leave them whole, set them in a pudding dish, pour your custard over them, and bake them about thirty minutes.

APPLE PUDDING.

A plain, unexpensive apple pudding may be made by rolling out a bit of common pie-crust, and filling it full of quartered apples; tied up in a bag, and boiled an hour and a half; if the apples are sweet, it will take two hours; for acid things cook easily. Some people like little dumplings, made by rolling up one apple, pared and cored, in a piece of crust, and tying them up in spots all over the bag. These do not need to be boiled more than an hour: three quarters is enough, if the apples are tender.

Take sweet, or pleasant flavored apples, pare them, and bore out the core, without cutting the apple in two Pill up the holes with washed rice, boil them in a bag, tied very tight, an hour, or hour and a half. Each apple should be tied up separately, in different corners of the pudding bag.

CHERRY PUDDING.

For cherry dumpling, make a paste about as rich as you make short-cake; roll it out, and put in a pint and a half, or a quart of cherries, according to the size of your family. Double the crust over the fruit, tie it up tight in a bag, and boil one hour and a half.

CRANBERRY PUDDING.

A pint of cranberries stirred into a quart of batter, made like a batter pudding, but very little stiffer, is very nice, eaten with sweet sauce.

WHORTLEBERRY PUDDING.

Whortleberries are good both in flour and Indian puddings. A pint of milk, with a little salt and a little mola.s.ses, stirred quite stiff with Indian meal, and a quart of berries stirred in gradually with a spoon, makes a good-sized pudding. Leave room for it to swell; and let it boil three hours.

When you put them into flour, make your pudding just like batter puddings; but considerably thicker, or the berries will sink. Two hours is plenty long enough to boil No pudding should be put in till the water boils. Leave room to swell.

PLUM PUDDING.

If you wish to make a really nice, soft, custard-like plum pudding, pound six crackers, or dried crusts of light bread, fine, and soak them over night in milk enough to cover them; put them in about three pints of milk, beat up six eggs, put in a little lemon-brandy, a whole nutmeg, and about three quarters of a pound of raisins which have been rubbed in flour. Bake it two hours, or perhaps a little short of that.

It is easy to judge from the appearance whether it is done.

The surest way of making a light, rich plum pudding, is to spread slices of sweet light bread plentifully with b.u.t.ter; on each side of the slices spread abundantly raisins, or currants, nicely prepared; when they are all heaped up in a dish, cover them with milk, eggs, sugar and spice, well beat up, and prepared just as you do for custards. Let it bake about an hour.

One sauce answers for common use for all sorts of puddings.

Flour-and-water stirred into boiling water, sweetened to your taste with either mola.s.ses or sugar, according to your ideas of economy; a great spoonful of rose-water, if you have it; b.u.t.ter half as big as a hen's egg. If you want to make it very nice, put in a gla.s.s of wine, and grate nutmeg on the top.

When you wish better sauce than common, take a quarter of a pound of b.u.t.ter and the same of sugar, mould them well together with your hand, add a little wine, if you choose. Make it into a lump, set it away to cool, and grate nutmeg over it.

HASTY PUDDING.

Boil water, a quart, three pints, or two quarts, according to the size of your family; sift your meal, stir five or six spoonfuls of it thoroughly into a bowl of water; when the water in the kettle boils, pour into it the contents of the bowl; stir it well, and let it boil up thick; put in salt to suit your own taste, then stand over the kettle, and sprinkle in meal, handful after handful, stirring it very thoroughly all the time, and letting it boil between whiles. When it is so thick that you stir it with great difficulty, it is about right.

It takes about half an hour's cooking. Eat it with milk or mola.s.ses.

Either Indian meal or rye meal may be used. If the system is in a restricted state, nothing can be better than _rye_ hasty pudding and _West India_ mola.s.ses. This diet would save many a one the horrors of dyspepsia.

CHEAP CUSTARDS.

One quart of milk, boiled; when boiling, add three table spoonfuls of ground rice, or rice that is boiled, mixed smooth and fine in cold milk, and one egg beaten; give it one boil up, and sweeten to your taste; peach leaves, or any spice you please, boiled in the milk.

COMMON PIES.

MINCE PIES.