Cocoa-nut Soup

Azure waters lap golden shores. Shadows from the lacy fronds of the coconut tree dance on the bleached sands under the blistering sun.  A coconut falls with a tiny thud, which reverberates around the world.  A journey, a foreign land, ........and a soup pot?

 Image courtesy of Exsodus / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Forgive my tropical musings, it's been a wet summer.  On my first flick through Eliza Acton's 'Modern Cookery for Private Families', the recipe for Cocoa-nut soup caught my eye.  It certainly had novelty value for me.  I've eaten plenty of coconut in desserts and Thai food, but never in beef soup.  I was also surprised about the wide availability of coconuts in 1845 - this was a book aimed at the domestic market rather than professional chefs.  Coconuts still seem pretty exotic to me after all! 

Coca-nut Soup

• Pare the dark rind from a very fresh cocoa-nut, and grate it down small on an exceeingly clean, bright grater;

Eliza Acton gives no instructions on how to open the coconut.  Apparently everyone knew how to do it back then.  I certainly didn't.  After consulting google, I moved through various techiques from tapping round the coconut with a knife to the more effective, if less professional looking, 'putting the coconut in a bag and hitting it really, really hard with a hammer' method. 
 

•  Weigh it, and allow tow ounces for each quart of soup. 

After all that work, only a very small amount of coconut actually went into the soup.  It seemed a bit of a waste of effort, but did leave me with plenty of left over coconut to play with.

• Simmer it gently for one hour in the stock, which should then be strained closely from it, and thickened for table.

I used a good quality bought stock, but Eliza Acton has several different reciepes in the book.

• Veal stock, gravy soup, or broth, 5 pints; grated cocoa-nut, 5 oz.; 1 hour.  Flour of rice, 5 oz.; mace 1/2teaspoonful; little cayenne and salt; mixed with 1/4 pint cream: 10 minutes.

My only substitutions were to use cornflour rather than rice flour for thickening, and mace rather than nutmeg.  As mace and nutmeg come from the same plant, I don't think this changed the flavour too much.

The taste test

On tasting the soup, what surprised me most was that it was not  at all sweet.  I'm mostly used to coconut in desserts and cakes, so although the sweetness comes from added sugar not from the cocont, I think of coconut as having a 'sweet' taste. Even in savory thai dishes, the coconut milk gives a sweetness to counteract the chile.  The coconut certainly didn't clash with the beef, but added a warmth along with the spices.  A good soup for a Scottish summer, even if it doesn't quite catch on down at the beach.

A Pudding Fit for a King (well, the chancellor at least)

Mrs Beeton was a bestseller in her time.  While her critics say she didn't write most the recipes, and that Eliza Acton was the first to include a list of ingredients, she is  the best known cookery writer of the period.  She certainly knew what her audience wanted, and could be considered as the first celebrity chef.

In view of the current economic situation, and thinking that the chancellor may need some sustenance in these troubled time, I picked this pudding for my first Mrs B recipe.

Cabinet or Chancellor's Pudding

Ingredients - 1 1/2 oz candied peel, 4 oz of currants, 4 dozen sultanas, a few slices of Savoy cake, sponge cake, a French roll, 4 eggs, 1 pint milk, grated lemon-rind, 1/4 nutmeg, 3 table-spoonfuls of sugar.

Melt some butter to a paste, and with it, well grease the mould or basin in which the pudding is to be boiled, taking care that it is buttered in ever part.  Grease the mould, thoroughly.  This is important, as you want to be able to turn out your pudding once it's done to present to your guests, not dig it out the mould.

Cut the peel into thin slices, and place these in a fanciful device at the bottom of the mould, and fill in the spaces between with currants and sultanas; then add a few slices of sponge cake or French roll; drop a few drops of melted butter on these, and between each layer sprinkle a few currents.  Proceed in this manner til the mould is nearly full; Simply build up the fruit and cake it layers

then flavour the milk with nutmeg and grated lemon-rind; add the sugar, and stir to this the eggs, which should be well beaten.  Beat this mixture for a few minutes; then strain it into the mould, which should be quite full; This is your basic custard to go over the cake.

tie a piece of buttered paper over it, and let it stand for 2 hours; then tie it down with a cloth, put it into boiling water, and let it boil slowly for 1 hour.  I used a plastic pudding basin with a lid.  I trust Mrs B would recommend the same if they'd only been invented, as it's much easier.  Just don't fill it too full, or the lid might ping off when your pudding expands.

In taking it up, let it stand for a minute or two before the cloth is removed; then quickly turn it out of the mould or basin, and serve with the sweet sauce separately.  Miraculously, my pudding turned out! The 'fanciful device' was a little worse for wear, but otherwise perfect.  I served it with a little jam sauce.

The pudding was absolutely delicious.  I was a bit worried, as I'd had a nibble of the cake while building up the pudding, and it was pretty nasty.  So, a real Cinderella story for the supermarket sponge. I'd also been expecting it to be quite stodgy, but it was very light, more like a baked custard than a heavy pudding.  The fruit was soft from soaking up the liquid, not at all chewy.  Couldn't taste the lemon, but Mrs B does suggest you could substitute essence of vanilla or bitter almonds, or make it richer with cream.  I loved it just the way it was.  Mrs B says seasonable at any time and I agree.  I don't know why it ever went out of fashion.