A HOLIDAY PUDDING FROM GALICIA

 

This bread pudding is chock full of fruits and nuts, a perfect holiday dessert.

Searching my favorite Galician cookbook (Cociña Galega by Álvaro Cunqueiro) for chestnut recipes (Galicia in northwest Spain is famed for its chestnut forests and dishes, both sweet and savory, with chestnuts), I came upon this recipe for a pudding with dried fruits and nuts. At first glance it seemed like bread pudding. At second reading, it rang the Christmas pudding bells. Now that I’ve made it, it seems almost as if you turned both the figgy Christmas pud and the brandy sauce into an eggy flan! 

Digging a little deeper (via Google) I found that the pudding, entitled mestura in the Cunqueiro book, meaning “mixture,” had several other names—vinchas, from vejiga (bladder); bandullos, meaning “belly,” and calleiras meaning “stomach” or “tripe.”  This seems to show that the pudding originally was stuffed into animal parts and steamed. In fact, one version, traditional during the winter hog butchering, has the bread crumbs soaked in pig’s blood rather than milk, making it not so different from English black pudding. 

The web site also mentioned a particular herb, nébola, that was incorporated in the pudding and also cooked with chestnuts. Which may or may not be Satureja Nepeta, related to the herbs summer and winter savory, or maybe it’s lesser calamint which possibly is the same as za’atar, the herb, not the blend. 

Not having a Galician avoa (abuela or grandma) to consult about the traditional kitchen, I used a pinch of summer savory (Satureja hortensis, ajedrea in Spanish). The herb has a fragrance reminiscent of thyme. It can be used in any recipe in which you might use thyme or sage—poultry, pork, stuffing, beans. I loved it in mushroom-barley soup and will definitely add it to the stuffing for the Christmas turkey. While savory—by its very name—may seem unusual in a dessert, I thought summer savory added a subtle forest counterpoint to the intense sweetness of figs and raisins. 

This dessert tastes as if you turned a Christmas pudding into a flan.

Serve the pudding with caramel syrup and whipped cream.

Galician Bread Pudding with Fruits and Nuts

Mestura Galega

You can substitute other dried fruits for the raisins and figs in this recipe. Try dried apricots, prunes, dates, cranberries. Málaga muscatel raisins are the sweetest, but must be seeded. Any seedless raisin could be used instead. Plump the dried fruits in sweet wine, brandy or aguardiente, anise liqueur.

Use day-old bread. Trim off any hard crusts as they will not soften when soaked in milk.

Bake the pudding in a baño maría, a water bath, so that it cooks evenly. Cool and then refrigerate it still in the baking pan before unmolding. The pudding keeps, refrigerated, up to a week. 

We enjoyed the pudding with caramel syrup and whipped cream. A traditional hard sauce or brandy butter would go nicely as well.

Bread, nuts, fruits, eggs, sugar, spices.

12 servings

4 cups diced day-old bread

4 cups whole milk

¾ cup seeded raisins 

1 cup chopped figs

3 tablespoons sweet wine, brandy or aguardiente

1/3 cup + 1 teaspoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

Grating of fresh nutmeg

Pinch of summer savory (optional)

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

3 tablespoons melted butter

6 eggs, beaten

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or almonds

¼ cup pine nuts

Caramel syrup or molasses to serve (optional)

Whipped cream to serve (optional)

Place the bread in a bowl and pour over the milk. Mix well and let the bread soak 30 minutes until softened. Mash it slightly with a wooden spoon.

Place the raisins and figs in a small bowl and add the wine. Let the fruit plump until ready to add to the batter.

Savory, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon.

Stir 1/3 cup of sugar, the salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, savory, if using, and zest into the bread-milk mixture. Fold in the raisins and figs. Add the butter, then beat in the eggs. Stir in the walnuts and pine nuts, saving a few to stud the top of the pudding.

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly butter a 6 to 8-cup loaf pan and line the bottom with baking parchment. Pour in the batter. Sprinkle the top with remaining 1 teaspoon of sugar and reserved pine nuts. Set the loaf pan in a larger pan and add boiling water to half its depth. Very carefully transfer to the oven.

Chill pudding before unmolding.

Bake the pudding until it is set when tested with a thin skewer, 50 to 60 minutes. Remove and cool the pudding on a rack. Do not unmold. When cool, cover the pudding with foil and refrigerate until chilled.

Loosen the sides of the pudding with a knife. Carefully unmold it onto a cutting board covered with baking parchment. Peel off parchment from the bottom of the pudding. Use a serrated knife to cut thick slices of the pudding. 

Serve accompanied by syrup and whipped cream, if desired. 

Use serrated knife to cut the pudding in thick slices.

More about the Galican herb néboda Hierbas Poco Conocidas.

BRANCHING OUT WITH HERBS

Hierba luisa (lemon verbena), a new herb to try.

After I wrote about capers last week, I decided I really had to have a caper plant. So, off to a vivero (nursery gardens) I went. I got my caper bush, which has a few teensy buds on it.

But, of course, I came home with much more than that. The caper plants were smack in the middle of flats of all sorts of herbs, culinary and aromatics.

Oregano.

For sure, I need to replace an oregano plant that had been lost from lack of water. And, must have some fresh dill for spring. Look at this gorgeous purple basil—it’s sensational in summer salads.

Basil adorns watermelon salad.

Lavender? I’ve never grown lavender before.

Oh, here is some hierba luisa, lemon verbena. I once had a lemon verbena bush in the garden where I lived in the village and loved using the fragrant leaves for making infusiones, herbal teas. Onto the cart it goes.

Herbal border--at the top, manzanilla (chamomile); center, romero (rosemary); below, tomillo (thyme) and santolina, an aromatic not used in the kitchen.

Once home with my pots, I must decide where to plant them out. The oregano will join the herbal border by the front steps.

Chives in flower.

Cilantro (coriander leaves).

The dill goes in a pot on the patio, next to the parsley, cilantro, mint and chives. They are steps away from the kitchen, so I snip one or another every day.

Before I even decide where to plant the lemon verbena, I have snipped off some leaves, infused them in milk and whipped the flavored milk with mascarpone (about ¼ cup of the milk to 1 ¼ cups mascarpone) to make a gorgeous cream to serve with sliced peaches. The flavors and aromas enhance each other.

For the lemon verbena-infused milk: Bring 1 cup milk to a boil with 1 tablespoon sugar and a strip of lemon zest. Remove from heat and add ¼ cup loosely packed lemon verbena leaves. Cover and steep until milk is cool. Strain the milk and discard the solids. Store in a covered jar in the refrigerator. Add the flavored milk to desserts such as pudding, ice cream. 

Mascarpone cream with lemon verbena tops sliced peaches and strawberries.

Other ideas for using lemon verbena: make a sugar syrup infused with the leaves. Add to ice tea or vodka. Serve chopped fresh leaves as a garnish for chicken or fish. Infuse chicken or fish stock with the leaves before using it to make sauce. 

Salvia (sage), part of herbal border.

Tomillo (thyme), beginning to flower. My favorite herb.