On page 215 is this pudding, dedicated to Lolita. I wish I knew who she was. There are other puddings dedicated to other women, some of whom are clearly Encarnación Pinedo's nieces. This could be to one of her nieces who was referred to by a nickname. Or it could be to a family friend or cousin.
What is intriuging about it is that it is a sweet pudding (one and a half pounds of sugar!!!) but it also has meat in it. It reminds me of the old (early 1800s and prior) ante recipes. They were originally designed to be served at the beginning of the meal (thus ante or "before") which did have meat and sugar in them. Later they were declared to be desserts, and typically did not have meat in them. Pinedo put several ante recipes in her book. I made one previously, which you can view by clicking here: Ante de Camote y Pina - A Luscious Dessert with Sweet Potatoes and Pineapple (pg 16).
The questions I had with this recipe are: Exactly what kind of pudding is it? She offered a variety of pudding styles, from boiled to steamed to baked to baked in a bain marie. She mentioned using crumbled bread, so is it like a bread pudding? But with the requirement of cream and eggs, presumably lots of them, I wondered if it were more like a baked custard. I still don't know exactly what a "kettle cup" is, but I presume it is around what we call 2 cups or 16 ounces. She said three kettle cups, which is six of our cups. That is a lot of cream!
I decided to create it as a custard pudding, with the eggs and cream being the major support and the other ingredients making it interesting. I was very tempted to bake it in a bain marie, but decided she would have specified that if she felt it was important. Puddings like this need to be baked in a very low oven so the custard doesn't curdle or cook up like scrambled eggs. I also chose to interpret a kettle cup as one of our 8-ounce cups, at least at the beginning of making the recipe, until I saw how the thing was going together. Then I would adjust as needed.
She did mention early in the pudding section that puddings should be put into shallow baking dishes. Instructions noted!
Her recipe
My Translation
1 pound sliced almonds
1 1/2 pounds sugar
8 ounces chicken breast, already cooked
3 cups cream
1/2 ounce butter, melted
1/2 cup bread crumbs
6 large eggs, separated
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| For crumbs: I started with two 3-inch diameter rolls, broken open to dry, & pounded in the mortar. |
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Butter the inside of a large, shallow ceramic dish. (See Notes.)
Chop the chicken breasts into about 1/4-inch pieces.
In a large bowl, mix the cream and sugar together until the sugar is dissolved. Add the melted butter and mix well.
Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks well and then mix them into the cream mixture.
Mix the bread crumbs into the cream mixture.
Mix the chicken and almonds into the cream mixture.
Whip the egg whites to stiff. Fold them into the cream mixture.
Fill the baking dish.
Bake for 1 hour (see Notes), until the center jiggles when the pan is shaken but stops when the movement stops, and the top is browned.
Let cool at least a little before serving.
My Notes
Instead of two chicken breasts as she specified, I decided the one really big one I had on hand would suffice. I weighed it instead of counting the quantity.
The chicken breast was previously cooked on a grill after being rubbed with olive oil and ground black pepper. There was not a lot of seasoning on the piece I chose, so I don't think the pepper influenced the flavor of the dish.
I did some reading in my Ratio book by Michael Ruhlman in order to get a sense of how many eggs were "necessary." Believing this would be a custard-like dish, I decided to use 6 eggs for 3 cups of liquid, giving a ratio of 12 ounces eggs to 24 ounces cream. Keep in mind that eggs are very carefully sized for us, whereas Señorita Pinedo made do with whatever eggs were available to her. They could have been all different sizes.
I had no idea how much volume the recipe would make, so I ended up using two ceramic baking dishes; one held 2 1/2 liters and the other 2 liters. It helped to use a ladle to move the batter into the dishes.
I thought it was done after 45 minutes of cooking, but once I broke through the crust on the top, the middle looked liquid, so I put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes. It is possible it was ready at 45 minutes -- it was browned and it certainly smelled good.
Ready for the oven. Two full baking dishes.
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| After 60 minutes of baking time. |
The Verdict
Letting the pudding cool a little seemed to give it a chance to set up in the middle.
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| The browned top was a crunchy crust. |
My first bite was ... interesting. Wow, was it sweet! But the flavor of the meat came through, which was intriguing when combined with the almonds and the sweet.
The custard I expected was more like the matrix which held together the chicken and almonds. It was not dense; I suspect because of the whipped egg whites.
It tooks a few bites before I really liked it. My mouth had to adjust to the concept of meat and sweet. But then I liked it. The almonds added a nice crunch.
It was sweet, as I said, and it was rich. I will have more, as will my guest taster who was trying to guess all that was in it and thought there was some fruit in it. He certainly enjoyed it.
In thinking about this blog post, I had trouble deciding if it was a dessert (but it had meat in it!) or a side dish (but it was sweet!). My guest taster thought you could have it as either, depending on what you wanted for the meal. I think that is good advice.
I then shared this with two other guest tasters. One, quite the foodie, thought it wasn't very sweet at all (I was astonished) and liked that because he doesn't really like sweet foods. He also felt, at first, that it had undercooked bread in it but then later decided that wasn't it and it wasn't a problem. He loved the nuts and how crunchy they were. He was surprised to know there was meat in it.
The other guest taster did not enjoy the food. He felt his mouth was "conflicted" because of the meat and sweet combination. It was "okay" but not something he would want to repeat. But he did think that he could get used to it if he other opportunities to try it.
Success!
It was just as good warmed up the next day. Maybe even better, as I got more of the custardy part in each spoonful.
I hope Lolita would be pleased with my result.
If I were to do this again, I would use half the amount of chicken and almonds, and I would use about 1/3 of the amount of sugar. But I would still use the same amount of cream and eggs and bread crumbs because my mouth kept wanting more of that matrix around the meat and nuts. I think changing the amount of butter is optional.
If I did this as a modern "upgrade," I would reduce the amount of sugar a lot, try using whole milk instead of cream, and consider using raisins as a delightful bit of chewy sweet. But still use chicken, because I think it surprises people, and that is always fun.
