English Tapioca, Sago, and Semolina Puddings, etc.

Le pouding anglais au tapioca, sagou ou semoule (English tapioca, sago, or semolina pudding) teaches one true thing: the chosen starch must be completely cooked in barely sweetened milk before the eggs go near it. The eggs cannot soften a chalky pearl or raw semolina. Their only work is to set the milk around the tender starch, giving you a pudding that yields to the spoon without running.

This entry is unusually democratic. It assumes no saucier, no stockpot kept going, no salamander, and not even a mould. What it does assume is a professional cook who already knows the quantity and cooking time for each paste, can measure a pint of preparation accurately, and has a bain-marie (hot-water bath) ready. For the home kitchen, that becomes one saucepan, a measuring jug, a buttered pie dish, and a roasting tin. The starch is scaled to 55 grams for four servings, while the book's governing ratio remains untouched: two eggs for one Imperial pint, exactly 568 millilitres, of cooked milk preparation. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Done properly, the pudding is ivory and softly set, with tender pearls or fine semolina held in a delicate custard and nutmeg freckling the surface. There is no turning out and no decorative sauce, because those would be ceremony rather than the dish. Measure the cooked base to the full 568 millilitres before adding the eggs. That is the step that decides the texture.