№ 34Zupa un pudiņš no teļu gaļas ar vēžu sviestu

Veal pudding in crayfish soup Serves 6 · about 3½ hours · Adapted from the 1796 recipe; not yet tested.

The book gives 3 mārciņas of veal, pork fat and suet together "not half as much" as the veal, and 8 eggs, which converts to about 1.25 kg, under 630 g and 8. We've halved this. The book gives no amounts for the bread, crayfish, broth, asparagus or morels.

Ingredients

For the pudding

• 600 g boneless leg of veal
• 120 g fresh pork back fat
• 80 g beef suet, skin removed (or use 200 g pork back fat in all)
• 1 small onion
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp ground mace
• 3 tbsp chopped parsley
• 4 eggs
• 80 g fresh white breadcrumbs
• Butter, for the basin

For the crayfish

• 20–24 live crayfish, or whole cooked crayfish (see Notes)
• Salt, for the cooking water (our addition)
• 30 g cold butter, a pinch of ground mace and 3 tbsp fresh white breadcrumbs, for the stuffing
• 15 g butter, for frying
• 100 g cold butter, for the crayfish butter

For the soup

• 1.5 l strong veal or beef broth
• 250 g asparagus, white or green (see Notes)
• 100 g fresh morels, or 15 g dried (see Notes)
• 1–2 tbsp fresh white breadcrumbs

Method

1. The pudding. Trim all the sinew from the veal. Cut it into pieces with the pork fat, suet and onion, and mince everything finely (twice through the fine plate of a mincer, or in batches in a food processor). Mix in the salt, mace, parsley, eggs and breadcrumbs until evenly combined. 2. Butter a 1.2 l pudding basin and press the mixture in. Cover with a pleated sheet of buttered baking paper and then foil, and tie it tightly under the rim with string so no water can get in. 3. Stand the basin on a trivet or folded cloth in a large pan and pour in boiling water to come two thirds of the way up. Cover the pan and keep the water at a steady simmer for 2–2½ hours, topping it up with boiling water as needed. The pudding is done when the centre reaches at least 72 °C. 4. The crayfish. If they're live, chill them in the freezer for 20 minutes, then drop them head first, a few at a time, into a large pan of fast-boiling salted water; they die within seconds. Cook for 5 minutes, then lift out and cool. 5. Twist off the tails and claws. Peel the tails, pull out the dark intestinal thread and crack the claws for their meat. Lift the large head shell off each body, scrape out the soft insides and gills, and rinse about 12 of the best shells for stuffing. Keep all the other shells and the small legs. 6. Chop the tail and claw meat finely and mix it with the 30 g cold butter, the mace and the breadcrumbs. Pack this into the head shells. 7. Melt the 15 g butter in a small frying pan and put the shells in, filled side down. Fry over medium heat for 2–3 minutes, until the stuffing is lightly browned. Lift the shells into the broth and leave the butter in the pan. 8. The crayfish butter. Pound the remaining shells and small legs with the 100 g cold butter in a mortar, or pulse them in a sturdy food processor, to a coarse paste. Add this to the butter in the frying pan and cook over low heat, stirring, for 10–15 minutes, until the butter is orange-red and smells strongly of crayfish. Don't let it brown. 9. The soup. Meanwhile, peel white asparagus (just trim green), cut it into 3 cm pieces and boil in salted water for 5–8 minutes, until tender. Clean the morels carefully (soak dried ones in warm water for 20 minutes first) and simmer them in a little broth or water for 15 minutes. 10. Set a sieve lined with muslin over the pan of broth and tip in the crayfish butter. Ladle some of the hot broth through the shells in the sieve so that all the butter washes through, then throw the shells away. Bring the soup to the boil. 11. Add the asparagus, morels and breadcrumbs and simmer for 2 minutes. 12. Turn the pudding out into a deep serving dish and pour the soup, with the stuffed shells, over it.

Notes

• What the book says vs. what we added: the book has you boil the forcemeat in a buttered cloth (or a tin pudding mould) for 3 hours; stuff the large crayfish shells with the chopped meat, cold butter, mace and grated bread, brown them in butter and put them in strong broth; pound the remaining shells and legs with butter, cook this and strain it into the soup; add boiled asparagus and morels with a little bread, and pour it all over the pudding. All the amounts except the veal and eggs, the cooking times, the temperature check, the salt for the cooking water and cleaning the shells are ours.
• Scaling: we've halved the book's 3 pounds of veal and 8 eggs. A pudding half the size needs less time: 2–2½ hours is plenty, against the book's 3.
• Basin or cloth: the book keeps the pudding fully under water, wrapped tightly in a buttered cloth. A sealed basin two thirds submerged gives the same result. To use a cloth, butter a large square of muslin, tie the mixture up in a tight ball and boil it fully covered.
• Crayfish: the book starts with crayfish that are already boiled. Dropping them into fast-boiling water kills them quickly, and chilling them first makes them torpid. Whole cooked crayfish (frozen, plain rather than in dill brine) are the easier option.
• Crayfish butter: pounding the shells with butter and cooking them draws the colour and flavour into the fat. The book says to keep the frying butter "separately"; we take this to mean it goes into the same pan as the crayfish butter, but that's our reading. The "large shells" are taken to be the head shells, as in German stuffed crayfish heads (Krebsnasen).
• Skostiņi and ķēvpupas: probably asparagus and morels, but neither is certain (see Piezīmes). Morels must always be cooked thoroughly; they're toxic raw.
• The forcemeat has more egg than a modern meatloaf, so it comes out soft, like a large quenelle. This is the book's ratio.