With Christmas comes a long list of traditional and modern recipes, one such favorite traditional recipe of the world is the boozy, rich, spiced Christmas pudding which is heavily studded with rum and brandy-soaked mixed dried fruits, candied orange and nuts Chef Jason DeSouza, an entrepreneur, !avor savant extraordinaire and an alumnus of Le Cordon Bleu in London, honed his craft in the famed kitchens of culinary royalty, Gordon Ramsay and Alain Ducasse.
He has recently opened the doors of his restaurant White Plate by Chef Jason DeSouza, located on the route to Candolim beach. It promises a culinary experience that the city has never experienced before. He shares a step-by-step recipe to make a simple pudding at home.
Ingredients:
Salted butter (softened) – ½ cup
Dark brown sugar – 200 gm
Eggs – 2 no.s
Cinnamon powder – 1 level tsp
Clove powder – ¼ tsp
Nutmeg powder – ¼ tsp
Black currants (soaked in rum overnight) – 1 cup
Cranberries – ¼ cup
Candied orange peel (roughly chopped) – 2 tbsp
Golden raisins – 1 cup
Almonds (roughly chopped) – 4 tbsp
Candied ginger (roughly chopped) – 2 heaped tsp
Rind of 1 orange
Juice of 1 orange
Rum
Refined flour – 120 gm
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Fresh bread crumbs – 2 cups
Apple (peeled & grated) – 1 no.
Brandy – 1 ladle full
Method
- Into a stand mixer cream the butter and sugar for 10 minutes till it gets light and airy.
- Pour in the eggs and emulsify really well.
- Add the cinnamon powder, clove powder, nutmeg powder and emulsify.
- (The clove and cinnamon powder can be omitted and replaced with all spice powder) Now there goes the black currants that have ben soaked in rum, the cranberries, candied orange peels, golden raisins, almonds and candied ginger.
- Blitz this all together.
- Drop in the rind of 1 orange and a cup full of the juice of 1 orange topped with dark rum.
- Continue blitzing while adding the refined flour, baking powder and bread crumbs. Lastly, in goes the grated apple.
- Mix it all well and pour into a dome shaped steel bowl with a lip that has been greased with butter.
- Give it a light pat to ensure that there is no air bubble, cover with a foot long parchment paper lined foil, and settle it tight and tie it with a twine under the lip.
- This ensures that no water vapor enters while it’s streaming.
- Stream in a streamer for 5 hours, opening it every hour to drop in some water so that it doesn’t burn dry.
- 5 hours later, switch off the flame, remove from the streamer, open it up and let it cool.
A Christmas pudding is always made in advance, so once cooled, line it with parchment paper, wrap in foil and refrigerate till Christmas eve, when you remove from the refrigerator and stream it again for 2 hours. Demold it, flambé it with some brandy on top and it’s ready to be enjoyed.
