PORTUGUESE MILK CUSTARD

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, The morning of the Feast of Corpus Christi, 1857

 

Milk Portuguese style (latte alla Portoghese) is yet another recipe by Pellegrino Artusi, my favorite 19th century gourmet. The recipe follows 'burnt milk', which is version of the Spanish crème brûlée, except that in Pellegrino's crème brûlée the sugar you'd put on top of the dessert for lighting up with a blowtorch is cooked in a pan and the resulting caramel mixed with the other ingredients. So this crema Catalana is not yellow inside and brown on the surface, it's brown wherever you look. The Portuguese version, as featured in Artusi's collection, is prepared in exactly the same manner but without the caramel. This pudding (which you might just as well label as 'custard') is the same as Pellegrino's next recipe: according to his introductory note, latteruolo/'milk pudding' was offered to a landowner by his tenants on the feast of Corpus Christi. Unlike latte alla Portoghese, the Italian milk pudding is baked in a shell of 'crazy dough' - a simple mixture of flour and water.

Browsing Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (1891), you will  find many recipes that Pellegrino Artusi labelled as foreign without them necessarily originating from the places he said. Whether latte alla Portoghese was actually from Portugal is uncertain although coffee that's mixed in for flavor vaguely reminds of Brazil. Otherwise, Portuguese cuisine has borrowed several recipes from its American colonies but Pellegrino's featured milk pudding was likely not one of them.

 

 

PORTUGUESE MILK CUSTARD

Pellegrino Artusi, or rather his cook Marietta, used a large baking dish for latte alla Portoghese but I opted for individual ramekins.

I n g r e d i e n t s

1lt full milk

100g caster sugar

8 egg yolks

2 egg whites

1tsp ground coffee 

 

M e t h o d

Boil the milk with half of the sugar and the coffee. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool slightly. Whisk the remaining sugar with the eggs, and stir into the milk. Divide between 6-8 individual ramekins that you will cover with aluminum foil. Fill a roasting pan with boiling water halfway up. Arrange the ramekins in the pan and bake in a hot oven until the custard is set.

 

V a r i a t i o n s

Replace the coffee with vanilla sugar or ground coriander.