I remember always feeling hungry after reading Enid Blyton. Her stories opened up an entirely new and exciting gastronomic world in my Gujarati home. Fresh buttery scones, jams, ginger buns, shortbread biscuits, ginger beer and Christmas pudding. I frittered away countless afternoons fantasising over the taste of pudding bursting with plump currants and aromatic spices.
Salivating over these memories, I met Rhea Dalal, the source of my first taste of Christmas pudding a few years earlier. Rhea and her husband, Kurush run Katy’s Kitchen, a catering outfit they inherited from Kurush’s mother, the legendary Katy Dalal along with a rich heritage of culinary history and traditions. Katy’s Christmas puddings were famous and Rhea has carried the annual ritual forward, making a limited edition of the treat every year. This year, she invited me to help.
I arrived to find kilos of ingredients assembled around a huge pot. In went flour, brown sugar, grated carrot and apple, spices, butter, eggs, and ground almonds. When it was time for the soaked fruit, Rhea handed me a tiny shot of the liquid. “For good luck” she said and explained, “The magic of these puddings is soaking the fruit for the maximum possible time. Each year we take out most of the fruit but leave a couple of kilos and most of the soaking liquid in the drum. Then we add more fruit and replenish the soaking liquid and seal it up for next year. This batch has been in cycle for 12 years now!”.
A Christmas evolution
The Christmas pudding as we know it today is vastly different from its 14th-century English ancestor. Christmas pudding came into existence as ‘plum pottage’, a savoury soup-like dish of meat and root vegetables. Over time, it evolved into ‘Frumenty’ a porridge-like dish enriched with dry fruits, wine, spices and thickened with grain. By the 17th century, it was even more solid.
Cooked in a skin (like a sausage), it was served as an appetiser or side dish. Later when dried fruits became plentiful — they were added generously along with eggs, breadcrumbs and alcohol — that the Christmas pudding evolved into a sweet form. By Victorian times, it was similar to the Christmas pudding Rhea and I were mixing.
The English Empire spread and so did Christmas traditions. In 1927, the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) formalised and officially released a recipe for a Christmas Pudding approved by the Royal family. It used ingredients sourced from all over the Empire including Australian currants, South African raisins, Canadian apples, Jamaican rum, English beer, Indian spices and more. It was a phenomenal success, splashed across newspapers, magazines, and handed out as fliers to the public. The Christmas pudding became a tradition throughout the British Empire, including India where it crossed over into Indian kitchens. It probably also helped that the pudding did not require an oven.
Taste test
Just like that it was time for Rhea’s pudding to get steamed in a centuries-old ritual. Into already buttered and lined moulds went the mix, where they were topped with butter paper, sealed, and sent off to be slowly steamed for four hours. After being unmoulded and flambéed, we dug in. As expected, every bite was rich and decadent, bursting with booze-infused fruit, spice, and brandy butter. Those Enid Blyton-inspired afternoons came alive yet again.
Rhea’s limited edition Christmas pudding is priced at ₹1,600 (large), ₹850(medium). Phone: 9820904694.See Katy’s Kitchen on Facebook for details.
