According to the ideas of people who have never been to England, pudding and oatmeal are almost all the dishes that the inhabitants of Misty Albion eat. In any case, in culinary terms, these two dishes for the whole world personify Great Britain. And if oatmeal in cooking is unlikely to cause difficulties even for a completely inexperienced chef, then pudding is something complicated, requiring numerous gestures and breathtaking cooking skills. Like most stereotypes, such an opinion is erroneous. Even the novice housewife is able to cook the same bread pudding - even if she has to start with, so to speak, small forms. That is, for the first time, take very small baking containers. And, of course, learn a few culinary secrets.
Secrets of splendor
This is not to say that the English national dish is so capricious in cooking. But, like any other, it requires a respectful attitude, a special approach and compliance with certain rules:
- Before making a pudding, the mold for it must be evenly and not too hot. It is enough to put the container in the oven for about three minutes.
- Fill oiled molds should be half, maximum - two-thirds of the height. The dough will rise, and in the unbaked state - and pour on the sheet. The smell of a burnt and ugly appearance are hardly signs of a culinary masterpiece.
- The main secret on how to make pudding lush and rosy is this: do not open the oven until the end of baking. Have to peek through the glass. Otherwise, the dough will settle and will no longer be baked - at least evenly.
These rules apply to recipes that involve the preparation of a special test. Classic bread pudding is made much easier. It is quite possible to practice it before embarking on more complex tasks.
English bread pudding
You won’t believe it: for it you need a regular white loaf, and even dried up. About the same as they usually put on cutlets. True, not only he. First, additional ingredients are prepared: three tablespoons of raisins are washed and soaked in half a glass of red port. Bones are pulled out of a third of a kilogram of fresh cherry. The form where the bread pudding will be baked is greased; half the sliced long loaf, spread with butter, is laid out on the bottom. Half a liter of milk is whipped with three eggs and four tablespoons of sugar. A third of the mass is poured on bread. Next, mixed cherry and strained raisins are mixed. The remaining pieces of bread soaked in an egg are placed on the fruit; wine in which raisins are soaked is combined with pouring and poured into a mold. After half an hour, allotted for the future bread pudding to be saturated , the recipe tells the sheet to be put into the oven for about an hour. Really easy?
Yorkshire pudding
Now let's move on to more complicated recipes. The Yorkshire option is basic, on its basis you can cook almost anything. We offer to cook pudding from Jamie Oliver: it is prepared without any complicated manipulations. A glass of flour is poured into a glass of milk; it’s better to heat the liquid, but with the cold it’ll work out, the main thing is to take it fatter. The components are whipped. When the lumps dissolve, an egg is driven in and a little salt is poured. If you want a greater brightness of taste - add dry aromatic herbs at the same stage. The dough is poured in heated and oiled tins. Yorkshire (aka bread) pudding is put into the oven and aged until golden (20-30 minutes is enough). Even after pulling it out, it does not “deflate” and does not lose shape.
In apple summer
Apple bread pudding is equally popular in England. The recipe is somewhat similar to the one used to prepare a regular pie, but the taste of the product differs dramatically. The form is greased and sprinkled with crackers, on which thin fruit slices are laid out. Half a bacon (white, of course) is cut in any pieces and placed on apples. A third of a glass of sugar is knocked down with a glass of milk, three eggs and a pinch of cinnamon. Pudding is poured with this mixture and put into the oven. The time that the apple-bread pudding will spend in it depends on the height of the form. But no more than forty minutes.
Salted Pudding with Cheese and Cottage Cheese
Contrary to popular belief, an English delicacy does not necessarily have to be a dessert. Home-made pudding quite adequately acts as an “accompaniment” for meat and fish, and even as a main course it’s not bad at all. The classic bread version with some modifications may be included in the list of your favorite foods. The traditional beginning: four eggs are beaten with a glass of milk - this time salted. One hundred grams of cottage cheese is rubbed through a sieve; as much cheese finely rubbed. In a bowl mix the base mixture, two-thirds of the cheese, cottage cheese and slices of half of the loaf yesterday. Pepper doesn’t hurt either. After mixing, the “dough” is laid out in a greased and sprinkled with breadcrumbs form, and sprinkled with cheese residues on top. After a quarter of an hour spent in the oven, home-made pudding seduces the family with smells and a rosy appearance.
Fast and cheap
Fans of English cooking have figured out how to make pudding without the intrinsic wisdom. And this time it will be a dessert. For its preparation, five teaspoons of starch, sugar and cocoa are dissolved in half a glass of warm milk. You can add a little vanilla. The resulting homogeneous liquid is poured into the remaining milk (in total it takes half a liter), and the saucepan is put on a very quiet fire. The only difficulty is that you constantly have to stir so that nothing sticks. After a minute of boiling, a hot mass is poured into beautiful creamers, and after cooling you get a real English pudding.
Curd variations
Another dessert that will appeal even to children who are disgusted with such a useful sour-milk product. A little less than half a glass of semolina is poured into a third of a liter of unheated milk; after 10 minutes, when the mass begins to thicken, the pan is removed from the fire. The yolks of four eggs are ground with a third glass of sugar, combined with semolina and beat. In another bowl, whites are beaten with a stack of sugar and lemon zest, both masses are mixed and complemented with raisins, after which the homemade pudding is put in a hot oven for half an hour. With sour cream, jam or syrup - you won’t come off!
Milk pudding
Even those who courageously adhere to diets sometimes want something tasty (and very often sweet). There is nothing simpler - they can prepare diet pudding, and let the presence of milk in it not be embarrassing: it is now found with zero fat content. A liter of just such a product is boiled with the addition of suitable spices: cloves, cinnamon, vanilla, and those who are afraid of harming their physique can add turmeric (it burns fat). After removing from the stove, the swollen gelatin is dissolved in milk (the amount is according to the attached instructions), and after partial cooling (when it no longer burns, and you can hold the container in your hands) - a spoonful of honey. Cool down - you can enjoy without worrying about kilograms.