Sweet Potato Pudding No. 1

This is actually what we call a pie because it has a crust but it looked simple and interesting, so I gave it a go.

The recipe is from Thomas Jefferson's Cook Book, by Marie Kimball.  It was originally published by the University Press of Virginia in 1976 and this is the fourth (1987) printing.

ISBN 0-8139-0706-3

Sweet Potato Pudding No. 1

Boil 1 pound of sweet potatoes until tender.  Rub them through a sieve.  Add 5 well-beaten eggs, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 cup of butter, the grated rind of 1 lemon, a dash of nutmeg, and a wineglass of brandy.  Line a baking dish with pastry and pour in the mixture.  Sprinkle with sugar and bits of citron and bake in a slow oven until set.  -- Mrs. Mary Randolf.

I believe this Mrs. Mary Randolf is the sister of Thomas Jefferson's son-in-law and she is also a descendent of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.  She is famous for her housekeeping and cook book, The Virginia Housewife.  This puts her solidly into the Colonial American time period.  Sweet potatoes are a New World food and someone from Virginia was likely to know how to cook with it.

I updated the methods by first microwaving the sweet potato until it was tender.  Once it was cool, it was easy to peel.

Then I put the sweet potato into my food processor and blended it until it was mushy.  After that I added the rest of the ingredients (not the pie crust!) and blended until it was smooth.  *Forgive me, History, but I couldn't bring myself to use an entire cup of butter -- I used 1/2 cup, slightly melted.

My "wineglass of brandy" was about 4 ounces.

Once the mixture was poured in the crust, I sprinkled sugar over the top but skipped the citron because I still don't own any.

Pre-oven

This pie was in a ceramic pan so I set the temperature to 325 degrees F and baked it until it was puffy all through -- about 60 minutes.  The very middle still looked moist but it was puffed and didn't jiggle, so I figured it was "set".

Post-oven, still hot

The smell was heavenly!

Waiting for it to cool enough to eat was challenging.

Cooled.  The cracking looks distinguished, no?

The Verdict:  Oh. my.  This is incredibly tasty with the sweet potato, lemon, nutmeg, and brandy flavors.  It is fluffy like a chiffon pie without having to deal with the whites separately.  The texture is light and smooth.  Each forkful melts in your mouth.  The sprinkling of sugar on the top before baking makes a sweet, slightly crunchy thin crust.

This "pudding" is marvelous just as it is.

If I were to change anything, I would add less sugar -- perhaps just a cup -- and I made the right decision on the butter.

By the way, don't skip the brandy in this recipe.  It brings the flavors to an incredible height and is a natural pairing with the nutmeg.

And yes!  The center was cooked all the way through. 

Stuffed Beef Breast

AKA:
Gefulte Rinderbrust

I got this from my Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book, by J. George Frederick.  It was published by Dover Publications, Inc. in 1971.

ISBN:  0-486-22676-X

Dover is stellar in my mind because they reprint, often completely, works that were published previously but may have otherwise been lost to time.  This cook book is "an unabridged republication of Part II, 'Cookery,' of the The Pennsylvania Dutch and their Cookery, as originally published by The Business Bourse in 1935."  (A bourse is a stock exchange; I wonder why they were publishing recipes!)

Gefulte Rinderbrust is on page 47, recipe #86, and looked both simple and interesting as something to do with a chunk of beef.

1 beef fillet
1 onion
1 teaspoon minced parsley
1/2 lb chopped meat
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Chop the onion, mince the parsley, add the salt and pepper.  Spread this over the beef fillet, rub in well on both sides.  Cover the fillet with the chopped meat, seasoned, and roll and tie it.  Cook until tender in covered pot with one cup of water.  Make a gravy to serve with it.

For my chopped meat, I chose ham

I had a piece of beef tenderloin.  Not exactly "breast" but I thought I could make do with it.  It was a thick slab of meat, so I cut in nearly in half horizontally (leaving a hinge) and then cut those nearly-halves nearly in half again, keeping everything connected.  This gave me a long, thin cut of meat.

See the three hinges?

My parsley patch was empty so I used basil instead.  Once the onion, basil, salt, and pepper were chopped and well-mixed, I spread it over the beef on each side, rubbing it in.  Since I was not sure quite how that works, I just rubbed until it seems like the herbs and spices were sticking and the onion had good contact.

Aye, there's the rub!

The chopped meat I used was ham.  I didn't season it because ham is already salty.  Plus I used more than 1/4 tsp of pepper in the onion mix.  It seemed like enough.  I'm sure if I had chopped the ham finer, or even ground it, it would have spread further along the beef, but I wasn't particularly concerned about it.  It rolled easily and I used two long wooden skewers instead of tying it.  All of the onion mix that fell off when I rolled the beef was piled on top of the roll before it went into the oven.

Ready to roll

Ready for the oven

It baked, with the cup of water and covered, for 2 hours at 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  That was a guess on my part.  I wanted slow cooking so it got tender without being rushed.

The Verdict:  Success!  Two hours was plenty of time -- perhaps I could have gone less -- but the meat was tender, cooked all the way through, and the flavor was lovely.  The beef was brown, the ham was red, and the onions were cream colored, so you could easily see the spiral from the rolling.  The basil was not strong; it was easily a background flavor and I could have probably spiced the meat even more without worry.  I didn't make any gravy because I wanted to taste it without that extra. There was plenty of liquid in the pan to use for gravy, if you wanted to.

Whole

Sliced

Definitely a repeater.  This is something that would be fun to serve to guests because it looks impressive once it is sliced.

Strawberry Pudding

It is strawberry season again and
Strawberye
is the name of this recipe from the English medieval era.  The recipe, as best I can write it with this keyboard, is as follows:


Take strawberys & waysshe hem in tyme of zere in gode red wyne; than strayne thorwe a cloth, & do hem in a potte with gode almaunde mylke.  Alay it with amyndoun other with the flower of rys, & make it chargeaunt, and lat it boyle; and do therein roysonys of courance, safroun, pepir, sugre grete plente, pouder gyngere, canel, galyngale; poynte it with vynegre, & a lytil whyte grece put thereto; colour it with alkenade, & droppe it abowt, plante it with the graynes of pomegarnad, & than serve it forth.

The book this comes from (one of my favorites!) is Pleyn Delit:  Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks  by Hieatt, Hosington, and Butler.  It is recipe #114 (the book has no page numbers).

ISBN 0-8020-7632-7

Here is their modern redaction:

2 - 4 oz ground almonds
1 1/4 cups water
1 pint fresh strawberries
1/4 - 1/2 cup red wine
2 tablespoons rice flour
1/3 cup sugar
pinch each pepper, ginger, cinnamon, salt
1 tablespoon butter (or lard)
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons dried currants

First draw up an almond milk with the almonds and the water. **Directions paraphrased from the Preface:  Mix the finely ground almonds with the hot water and let steep for a while.  Strain through a cloth, also squeezing the cloth to get out all the liquid.  Use the liquid in the recipe; the almond meal is good for other recipes. (I used 4 oz of almonds and then cheesecloth for the straining.)  Note that you are trying to get the oils from the almonds into the water, which is why you squeeze it.

The mix is steeping.

This is what was left after straining and squeezing

Hull and pick over the strawberries.  Put in a bowl and pour wine over them.  Mix gently with your hand or a wood or plastic spoon; then pour off and discard the wine.  (This seemed like a waste of good wine!  But I did it anyway and some wine stuck to the strawberries.  I consoled myself with a cup of wine afterwards.)

Blend or process the berries with the rice flour, sugar, spices, and almond milk.

After the blender time

Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly; let it boil about 2 minutes to thicken, then remove from heat and stir in first the butter, then the vinegar and currants.

Cooked and noticeably thicker

Pour into a large serving bowl or individual dishes and allow to cool.  Chill before serving.

The Verdict
I will call this a success -- there was nothing I would call a failure at all.  I liked the flavor and how thick it was and that it wasn't too sweet.  The hesitation in my conclusion comes purely from the overall reaction I had to it.  I honestly wanted more strawberry flavor and I think it had too many other flavors mixed in.  That is easy to fix -- I would lighten up on the vinegar and perhaps the spices.  I don't think the butter is important. 

The currants, which normally I enjoy, were a distraction.  Some of that is just me:  I wanted a smooth berry pudding and I got a berry pudding with little bits of chewy currants to work through with each bite.  If (when!) I make this again, I would add chopped strawberries instead of the currants, which would give the bits of chewy but increase the strawberry flavor instead of competing with it.

Overall, I liked it!  It is a different way of eating strawberries and it can be dairy-free as well as gluten-free, if you need that.  It is pretty to look at and has a good flavor.

I made my own almond milk but you can get a premade at the store these days.  I've tried it and thought it was okay enough if you are in a hurry. 

Pease Pie

Actually, the official title of this recipe is

To Make a Close Tart of Green Peas

but I really liked the simpler and alliterative name of Pease Pie.

A bit of history:  What we call a "pea" (plural:  peas) was once called a "pease" with the plural of "peasen".  Somewhere in the transition from Middle English to modern English, the singular became plural and that sounds right to us today.

It is spring and I have been a whirling dervish in my garden.  My thoughts turned to fresh vegetables and herbs and interesting ways to prepare them.  My thoughts also noted that I have one pie crust in the refrigerator that needs to be used.

So I explored my books and found this recipe mixed in with a variety of fruit pies recipes:

Take half a peck of green peas, sheal them, and seethe them, and cast them into a collander, and let the water go from them.  Then put them into a tart whole.  Season them with pepper, saffron, and salt, and a dish of sweet butter.  Close and bake him almost one hour.  Then draw him and put to him a little verjuice, and shake them and let them into the oven again, and so serve it.

A pie made with peas as the primary ingredient?  I'm not sure how I feel about it but, since I like peas, I thought I would give it a try.  A peck is about 8 quarts.

By the way, the book I found it in is The Good Housewife's Jewel by Thomas Dawson.  It was originally published in 1596.  The recipe is on page 76.

ISBN  1-870962-12-5

I needed to make some changes based on my modern ingredients.  I'll admit it:  the green grocer's had fresh peas in the pod in stock but I just flat out did not want to shell them.  Not even the less-than-half-a-peck I expected to fit in my single pie crust.  So I took the easy route and bought a 1 pound bag of frozen peas.  (Do I get extra credit for them being organic?)

I also have discovered, through this blog and from my demonstrations, that I am not fond of saffron.  I'm not sure if that is a blessing or a curse, considering how people rave about the flavor but complain about the cost.  My first decision for a substitute was nutmeg -- it just seemed like it would be good.  That is what you see in the picture.  What I decided on after the picture was taken was to include about a tablespoon of fresh spearmint from my garden.  Peas and mint are a special flavor combination!

Finally, I don't have verjuice, an acidic juice of crab apples or unripened grapes, but the standard substitute is a mild vinegar.  I used red wine vinegar.

I hadn't thought of the mint yet

My peas were tender and flavorful and really didn't need to "seethe" as the recipe called for.  I knew they would cook more in the pie and I didn't want to start with over-cooking them.  So I covered the frozen peas with boiling water and let them stand for five minutes.  That defrosted them and cooked them just a little.

After they were drained, I poured about 2 tablespoons of melted butter over the peas and stirred.  Then I added a little bit of pepper and salt, a little bit of nutmeg, (less than 1/8 tsp of each), and the tablespoon of finely chopped mint and stirred again.

I agreed that this pie needed a cover but with only one crust at hand, I decided to make it more of a turnover.  I used a pie pan to help hold the ingredients and only filled half of the crust.  My impression was that it was too full but I went ahead and used all of the filling.

 Then I folded it over, crimped the edges, and cut a hole in the top for venting.  After I took this picture, I put a dab of butter on top of the hole and put it in a 375 degree F oven for 25 minutes.

The result?  The crust broke open and spilled some of the liquid into the pan.  I didn't want to cook it longer to brown the crust more because I worried about scorching the exposed peas.  I was beginning to think this recipe was a failure!

However I poured in a bit of vinegar (while the pan was tipped so it touched the peas instead of running out of the crust) and let the pie sit for a few minutes.  I think I used about a teaspoon of vinegar.


Thus I so served it.

The Verdict  Wow, I really liked it!  The peas rolled out onto the plate, of course, but it actually made the pie look more appealing to me.  The flavor was amazing  -- peas and mint and the slight bite of vinegar was an excellent combination.  The pepper, salt, and nutmeg were definitely in the background, playing a very subtle role.

I have to be honest:  I felt as I was making the pie that the crust might be a waste of time.  Why not just eat the pea filling "as is"?  I was wrong.  The crust added a neat counter flavor and texture to the peas and their minty-ness.  It made me think of how it is fun to embed peas in mashed potatoes before eating them, but the flavor was shifted to slightly sweet.  Plus the crust was just crunchy enough to make it interesting.  I went back for seconds.  I'll have the rest tomorrow!

If (when!) I make it again, I'll use two crusts so there is less chance of a break. I will also consider adding some sauteed onions to the mix.

I recommend it as a different take on serving peas for dinner.  I would pair it with a roast to add both the veggie and the starch components.  Yum!

An Unusual Gold Rush Pudding

When I first read this recipe in From Fingers to Finger Bowls, A Sprightly History of California Cooking, by Helen Walker Linsenmeyer, I was immediately reminded of the dessert called "White Pot", a fine video of which is found at the YouTube channel of Jas Townsend and Son:  White Pot video.

A Copley Book, published by the Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

It is found in the chapter on the Gold Rush of 1849.  What impressed me is how the creator of this recipe managed to retain the good parts of White Pot while coping with the lack of an oven and probably reduced food supplies -- I can imagine someone making a taste of home while out in the wilds of Northern California.

The recipe is listed on page 75 simply as

Caramel Pudding

4 slices bread (lightly buttered)
2/3 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
2 eggs, beaten with a fork
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup raisins

Cut bread into small cubes and place in heavy saucepan.  Sprinkle sugar and raisins over the top.  Mix eggs and milk with salt and vanilla and pour over bread mixture.  Do not stir.  Cover and cook very slowly for an hour.

I was using a french bread loaf, which concerned me because I wondered if the four slices were smaller than what the author had intended.  But I went ahead and tried the recipe anyway!  I buttered the bread just on one side.

Everything was going into a small saucepan because it just didn't look like a large quantity.


After cutting the bread into cubes and sprinkling on the brown sugar and raisins, I mixed up the milk, eggs, salt, and vanilla, then poured it over the bread mixture.  Some of the bread cubes and raisins floated to the top.

The instructions said "cook very slowly for an hour" so I set my stove flame to the absolute lowest it offered, put the lid on the pan, and set the pan on the stove.  I decided I would trust in the recipe so I set the timer for one hour and walked away.  (This was hard!)

After about 40 minutes it really smelled good.  When the timer rang, I turned off the flame, took off the lid, and sniffed the pudding.  It was fabulous!

Perhaps I should have let it cool in the pan before turning it out but I couldn't wait.  When it inverted onto the serving plate, it sort of slumped all over.  Also, some of it stuck to the pan and I had to scrape it out.

Not attractive but still tasty

The Verdict:  I ate it while it was hot (not recommended as the raisins burned my mouth) and thought it was delicious.  Success!  I liked the caramel flavor and the creamy of the custard.  It was very delicate in texture.

The next day I tried the pudding straight out of the refrigerator and that, too, was tasty.  It was also firmer and the flavors had blended.  I liked it even more.

I had almost made it without the raisins just because I had to make a special trip to the store to get them.  I'm glad I didn't because I thought the raisins added a lovely texture (they are chewy and the pudding is soft) as well as a nice flavor.

It is a rich dessert so a little goes a long way.  I think you could easily serve this to four to six people and not feel like it was skimpy.

I think I probably could have put in another two slices of bread to thicken it and I would have buttered the bottom of the pan, too.  If you wanted to play with the recipe, you could add some spices, use whole wheat bread, change out the dried fruit, or reduce the sugar amount a little.

I heartily recommend this bread pudding-like dessert, especially because of the ease in cooking.  It would be good on a camping trip if I was cooking over coals.

Spongy Bread

I have this little book that I have guarded and treasured for a few decades now.  It is The Basic Book of Baking Bread by Geraldine Duncann.

ISBN 0-932824-06-4

It was published in 1979 by Celebration Press and I suspect it had a very limited printing run.  It is all of 10 pages and about 5 by 4 inches in size.  But Ms. Duncann has a kind and gentle writing style and some fun recipes.

As an introduction to the book she writes, "This is a collection of recipes that I have gathered in my travels about the British Isles."  What makes her recipes interesting for an historical cooking blog is that they all use the sponge method. Making a sponge for your bread was probably originally designed to ensure that the yeast you are using is actually working, something we don't have to think about these days with modern food science backing us up.

A sponge is basically a liquid-y mix of flour, water, salt, sweetener, fat, and yeast that you set aside for a few hours until it is bubbly and thick.  Then you add more flour and knead until you have a dough that is shaped into loaves.  It takes more time than today's quick process but can develop more flavor.


I decided to try the one entitled "Essex Harvest Bread".  Her introduction for this recipe is amusing:

           One day last fall when I was crawling about amongst the nettles, chicken dung,
     muck, and cow pats of an exceptionally decrepit East Anglia barnyard
     photographing  the worm-eaten foundations, joists, joinings, dragon beams,
     rabbets (the wooden kind), and dadoes of a particularly fascinating (in a gnat's
     posterior  -- you seen the worm-eaten underpinnings of one barn, you seen them
     all) 15th century barley barn (why a barley barn should be of any significant
     difference from an oat, lentil, wheat, hop, millet, bean, bracken or cannabis barn
     I shall never know), but anyway, one day whilst I was doing all this for a particular
     study, and feeling rather sorry for myself, and being in mud up to my unmentionable,
     I got myself up and I drove to the nearest pub.  ...  I ordered a plowman's lunch,
     and to my delight instead of the usual good but quite standard slice of bakery
     white bread, there was a chunk of this fine and hefty concoction.

          I asked the publican about it and he said that a lady in the village baked it once
     a week and had for over 50 years.


With a description like this, how could I not give it a try?

Essex Harvest Bread

Make a sponge of 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup of cooked cracked wheat, 1 cup rolled oats, 1 cup of rye flour.  Add 4 cups of water, 2 cups of honey, salt and yeast and oil enough.  To this add 2 cups of grated carrots or 1 cup of carrots and 1 cup of chopped apple.  Stir well and leave to rise.

Add enough whole wheat four to make a soft dough and knead well.  Form into large oblong loaves and place on a baking sheet.  Paint the tops with beaten egg and sprinkle with rolled oats.  Slash the tops with a sharp knife and leave to rise.

Bake in a moderate oven till done.

My Notes

I didn't have any cooked cracked wheat, but I did have some uncooked wheat berries, so I put them in a pot, added about four times their volume in water, brought them to a boil, and simmered them for 20 minutes.  Then I drained them and added them to the flour mixture.  This made them tender and just a little bit chewy, which I liked.

At the beginning of her book she mentions the ratios of salt, yeast, and oil to use in a sponge.  Following that, I added 1/2 cup oil, 2 tsp salt, and 1 tsp yeast.  I chose to use 1 cup of chopped carrots and 1 cup of chopped (unpeeled) apple.

Filled about half of the bowl

 It was a cool afternoon so I put the sponge into a slightly warm oven to proof.  After about 2.5 hours, it had increased in volume by half and was visibly bubbling.  

Actively bubbling and much thicker than before

I put it into my mixer bowl and started adding whole wheat flour.  After 8 cups (added 1/2 cup at a time; each addition was mixed in thoroughly before the next), the dough was showing signs of getting stiff enough to form a loaf.  It was also too much dough for my mixer -- the gooey stuff kept trying to climb out of the bowl and over the dough hook.

So I piled it all up on the flour-dusted counter and kneaded in another cup of flour (that's 9 cups total).  The dough was stretchy and holding its shape well and so I deemed it ready for the loaf pans.  Yes, I put them in pans instead of free-standing loaves so I could get sandwich-sized slices.

All the dough in one big ball

 After painting, sprinkling, and slashing the tops, I set the loaves aside for their second rising.  It took about 1 hour, 15 minutes for them to get close to double in size because of the cool temperature in my kitchen.

Brushed, sprinkled, and slashed

I baked them for 20 minutes at 425 degrees F, which was too hot and caused the bottoms to scorch a little (grrrrrr!).  I should have listened to Ms. Duncann who suggested using a 350 degree oven. 

Oh, the smell of freshly baked bread!

The Verdict  Success!  Oh my, this bread is tasty.  It is pretty light for a whole wheat bread and the flavor is rich with the wheat berries, honey, carrots, and apple.  I think it would be an insult to the bread to spread it with butter.  Just a light toasting to bring out the honey flavor (and make the wheat berries taste a little like popcorn!) and that is enough.  I started eating one loaf; the others will be frozen for future munching.

Definitely worth a repeat.  One aspect I liked about this bread is that it really used up a lot of my flour varieties.  I was getting worried that they were getting old, despite being frozen, and I was happy to see them go into bread instead of into the trash.

Roasted Onion Salad

This is a simple and yet tasty recipe that makes a good side dish.  I don't think it really works for what we call a "salad" today but it sure is good, especially if you pair it up with a roasted meat dish or a grilled steak.

I found this dish in the book The Medieval Kitchen by Redon, Sabban, and Serventi.  (Here's a link to it on Amazon.com; I don't own a copy:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Medieval-Kitchen-Recipes-France/dp/0226706842)

The recipe:

Take onions; cook them in embers, then peel them and cut them across into longish, thin slices; add a little vinegar, salt, oil, and spices, and serve.

This is my favorite way to prepare it.

It is well-suited for an historical cooking demonstration because you simply take the onions (sweet are best but any will do) and roast them in the fire.  I have never just put them in the embers because I find it more visually interesting to put them on skewers where people can see them.  Every once in a while I turn the skewer so the onion roasts evenly all the way through.  The onion is done when it is very soft and is trying to slide downhill on the skewer.

Making it at home is just as simple:  I put the onions in a pan (this catches the drips) and put them into the oven at about 350 degrees F for an hour or two.  In other words, I slow cook them until they are very soft and squishy.

This makes the onions tender and sweet, without that classic onion bite at all.

All done

In either case, when they are cool enough to handle, I peel and slice them. 


I prefer to use just a decent balsamic vinegar and a little grating of nutmeg.  It is also fine to put in some black pepper and a little salt.  I only use oil (olive oil) if I feel the flavor of the onions is a little flat -- mostly I like the clear mild onion flavor without the olive-y boost.  Whatever vinegar you use, make sure it is mellow enough to enjoy "as is".  You don't want a harsh tang when you eat these.

You can consider the advice on the bowl, too!

Nowhere do I give measurements for the vinegar and nutmeg.  I recommend that you splash on a little vinegar, scrape or shake on a little nutmeg, toss the whole and taste it.  Keep doing this until you get that delightful balance of flavors that tickles your tongue.  Different onion varieties and different vinegars will give different results, so you might as well practice analyzing what your taste buds are telling you.

The Verdict:  Success, of course!  I've used this dish many times over the last several years.  The only mistakes I've made were not cooking the onions until very soft, thus leaving behind some of the harsher onion flavor (it is better to cook them "too much" rather than "too little"), and putting on too much balsamic vinegar, so that all you can really taste is the vinegar.  You can drain off the excess and try to mellow it out by adding other spices and the olive oil.  Perhaps you can rinse off some of the vinegar, too, although I've never tried it.

The recipe direction for "longish, thin slices" is a good one.  Large or wide slices put too much onion in your mouth all at once, which I find feels like I am drowning in onion.  The smaller slices are easy to eat with a fork or even medieval-style, using your fingers.

Dueling Cantaloupes, The Return Fire

The first recipe for Cantaloupe Pie from Dining in the Diner did not work out the way I think it was intended.  Now is the chance for the second recipe, this one from The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro, to have its shot.

On page 90 and dedicated to Mary Church Terrell, one of the first African-American women to earn a bachelor's degree in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Church_Terrell), is the recipe.

Cantaloupe Pie

1 large canteloupe [sic]
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large pastry shell

I didn't put the pastry shell in the picture

Cut canteloupe [sic] in halves, remove seeds, cut up pulp and put into a double boiler with sugar.  Mix cornstarch with a little cold water and add to canteloupe.  After mixture thickens add beaten egg yolks and salt and cook a little longer.  Cool  Pour into baked pastry shell.  Spread with meringue made from egg whites and 1/4 cup sugar, flavored with lemon.  Brown meringue in oven at 325 degrees.  Cool before serving.

My Process
Instead of cutting up the pulp, I put the peeled, chunked cantaloupe through the shredder of my food processor.  After all, it worked so well for yesterday's recipe!  It takes very little time and I appreciated that.


When I added the sugar, I stirred until it was all dissolved before I added the cornstarch solution.  Also, I had the double boiler already simmering before I put in the cantaloupe.

It took a long time to cook the mixture in the double boiler.  About an hour, with me occasionally giving it a stir and checking on the temperature.  It was the longest thickening-with-cornstarch experience I have had!  The nice part is I didn't have to worry about overcooking the cornstarch and losing the thickening feature.

It was a little hard to tell when the mixture was thick enough to add the egg yolks and salt.  When I looked at the pictures it was obvious -- before it was thick it looked juicy and afterwards it looked creamy.  The cornstarch, when first added, made the mix look cloudy but that only went away a little bit once it was cooked since the cantaloupe juice is somewhat cloudy on its own.

Getting hot but still liquidy

It looks thicker

But I guessed when it was thick enough and then cooked the mixture about five minutes longer once I added the yolks.  Then I put the whole thing out on the counter to cool before I put it into the refrigerator.

There was more filling than would fit the crust so I tasted the leftovers.  Oh my!  What I got was a fresh cantaloupe flavor, lightly sweet, and very appealing.  The previous recipe was sweeter and a little more cloying and, although I originally liked the nutmeg flavor in it, in a re-taste, the nutmeg was more of a shocking flavor than nice.  I definitely liked this version's flavor better.

After an hour or so in the 'fridge the mixture was cool enough and thick enough I was willing to put it into the crust.  Then the entire pie went into the 'fridge with hopes it would get solid enough to be viable.  I figured I would put the meringue on later.

It took several hours but it looked thick enough to warrant putting on the meringue.

Then I browned the meringue first in the 325 degree oven (for ten minutes) as suggested, which dried it nicely but did not do more than brown the tips.  So I switched it to under the broiler and was pleased with the results.

It went back into the 'fridge to chill out before the grand taste-test.

The Verdict
I would call it a "success"!  Although the filling was not as thick as I'd like it to be, it was still thick enough to cut and maintain its shape.  It took another day before I felt like the juicy part was starting to soak through the crust, although that was not a bad thing.

I liked the flavor -- still fresh and not too sweet -- much better than the first recipe.  There was more filling than would fit in the crust, so I got to eat that separately (another treat!).  My guess is that our modern cantaloupes are bigger on average than what was available in the 1940s to 1950s and that is why I had so much trouble getting the filling to thicken correctly.  If I made this again, I would add more cornstarch.  I would would also consider using a puree of cantaloupe to see if I liked the smoother texture better.

Either way, the flavor was lovely, especially if you like cantaloupe, and I do.

I would recommend this recipe over the first unless you really love the flavor of nutmeg.

Dueling Cantaloupes, The First Shot

I recently reread one cookbook (see the Feb 2013 post, "Lemon Smothered Chops") and acquired a new old cookbook.  Both had their versions of a recipe that caught my eye, cantaloupe pie.  Doesn't that just sound weird/intriguing/curious?  I decided the only thing to do would be to make them both and compare their processes and results.

I started with the recipe out of this book, a new one to my railroad cookbook collection, Dinner in the Diner by Will C. Hollister.  It was published in the early 1980s and discusses many rail lines including the Texas and Pacific Railroad which was first organized in the 1870s.  The text on page 127 says, "Among the delicious dishes favored on Texas and Pacific dining cars has been cantaloupe pie, the recipe for which is given here." (Page 128)

ISBN 0-87046-011-0

 Cantaloupe Pie a la Texas and Pacific

1 well ripened cantaloupe
2 tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup cold water

The eggs are for the meringue

Strain juice from seeds of the cantaloupe and put meat of cantaloupe through a ricer.  Preserve both the meat and juice.  Pour this mixture into a sauce pan and add the cup of cold water.  Place on stove and boil for five minutes.  Mix flour and sugar together and slowly add to the hot mixture, stirring constantly.  Add the butter and nutmeg.  When the mixture is cool, pour into ready-baked pie shell and cover with meringue.  Brown in oven.

For Meringue:  Whiles of three eggs (well beaten) with one teaspoon sugar.

My process
I don't have a ricer so I put the peeled and chunked cantaloupe through the grater of my food processor.  I think it achieved the same goal.

There wasn't much juice with the seeds until much later, after I had already started cooking the mix. 

The recipe wasn't clear about how to handle the heat after the cantaloupe had boiled for five minutes, so I turned it down to low for the rest of the steps.

I'm not sure how slowly I should have added the flour/sugar mix but I did make sure each part was well-mixed before I added another.

After getting the whole mix cooked and blended, I let it sit on the stove top to cool.  It never got any thicker than soup.  This would not do for a pie filling.  One cut and it would all leak out over the pan, if it hadn't already soaked through the crust!

Soupy.  Not good.

I thought perhaps I needed to cook the filling longer, to give the flour a chance to thicken it.  So I brought it to a boil for three minutes and then let it cool again.  I even put some of it in a little dish into the refrigerator to see how it would thicken.  Again, it didn't get thick, not even the chilled portion.

At this point I would call the recipe a failure!

Not wanting to just toss the whole thing out -- after all the flavor was lightly sweet and cantaloupe-y with just enough texture from the shreds -- I mixed in one tablespoon of cornstarch mixed with 1/8 cup of water, and brought it to a boil again, this time for two minutes.

The mix was definitely thicker.  But even after having it sit in the refrigerator overnight, it did not get thick enough to put into the pie crust.  Perhaps I should have used two tablespoons of cornstarch.

I think it would a wonderful topping over vanilla ice cream so it won't go to waste.  Tomorrow I will try the other recipe!