Nesselrode Pie

[Northern Light]

Once upon a time in the French Revolution, there was a boy named Marie-Antoine, who had a very special talent. He could COOK!
My land, the boy could cook! He grew up to be the first celebrity chef of the 19th century and invented many famous dishes, some of which we still eat today. He was really good at making desserts, which is why I am writing about him today. He was also drop-dead gorgeous, which never hurts.

(wikipedia)

In 1814, after Napoleon was finally defeated, Nicolas the 1st, Tsar of All Russias, decided to visit Paris with his chief diplomat, Count Karl Nesselrode. Tallyrand, that master of quick coat changes, invited Nesselrode to stay with him at his palace, and had his chef, none other than our boy, Antonin Careme, invent a special dessert for him: Nesselrode Pie, a concoction of nessels and rodes (Just Kidding) chestnuts, vanilla custard, candied fruit, and cream all mixed together and then frozen, that wowed the socks off of everyone who tried it.
Here is a painting of Count Karl, who was no slouch in the looks department either.

(wikipedia)

 

[Northern Light]

By a long and winding road, this dessert made its way to America (I guessing Jefferson might have had a hand, (finger, haha), in it), where it soon became a staple of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners until the 1970s, at which time it seemed to drop so far off the culinary radar screen that most people under 50 today have probably never heard of it.

According to the website FOOD52, this is what happened:
"Then came the 20th century and the age of industrialization, in which we began screwing up perfectly good foods: We started suspending canned tuna in lemon Jello, cramming whole chickens into cans, trying to make every foodstuff "EZ." Nesselrode pudding got the convenience treatment too, and went to **** the same way mincemeat and cherry pie filling did. All you had to do was pop open a jar of mix, stir it into a bowl of prepared boxed vanilla pudding and "whipped topping," and you were good to go. The melange of slow simmered dried fruits was replaced by those awful red and green candied cherries that are infamous for "ruining fruitcake." The notes of expensive booze were replaced by something I can neither pronounce nor spell, so we'll move on. The chestnuts were replaced... by ground up cauliflower stems. You read that right. Then all of that was mixed up with some corn syrup, crammed into a glass jar, and there you go—highfalutin entertaining in less than five minutes."
food52.com/blog/18711-the-world-s-first-celeb-chef-and-his-lost-christmastime-pie

One can quickly understand why this "delight" disappeared so quickly and thoroughly. I mean a lot of people don't want to eat cauliflower with their main meal, let alone in their dessert!

Food52 goes to state: In the 1940s, a woman named Hortense Spier opened a pie bakery on Manhattan's Upper West Side, which sold to restaurants all over the city for the next thirty years. One of her signatures was a pie crust filled with modernized Nesselrode pudding, stabilized with a bit of gelatin and covered with chocolate shavings. While it was popular all year round, its sales boomed around Christmas—possibly because the red and green filling was seen as festive, and you know how people love to color coordinate around the holidays.(Food52)

 

[Northern Light]

Now what does this dessert looked like:

(click camera)
Pretty impressive, right?
Now most of us do not invite enough people to their holiday feasts to demolish this towering extravaganza, (well, at least I don't!) so somewhere along the line This dessert was down-sized and inserted into a more manageable shape. After all, not everyone had or wanted or could afford jelly moulds and so they did that most American of things, dumped it into a pie crust. Easy as pie! This was a more convenient was to store (in a snow bank?) and much easier to serve.

(www.potspansetcetc.com/492/nesselrode-pie/)

Not being content with this pretty offering, the inevitable happened.
Chocolate!

(http://thatchbo.blogspot.com/2010/01/bee-taylors-nesselrode-pie.html)
Note that this pie is Aint Bee's Pie, so you know it is GO-OOD!

However, just to out-do her, that neighbour up the road had to make a chocolate crust and a ganache on top! Tsk-tsk-tsk!

(foodperestroika.com)

 

[donna]

Very impressive. Thanks for history.

 

[Northern Light]

Finally, I bring the recipe.

The original:
Nesselrode Pudding

Peel 40 fine Italian chestnuts, blanch them in boiling water to remove the second skin, and put them in a stewpan with 1 quart of syrup registering 16° and a stick of vanilla; Simmer gently until the chestnuts are done, drain, and rub them through a hair sieve; Mix in a stewpan 8 yolks of egg and a half lb. of powdered sugar, add 1 quart of boiled cream, and stir over the fire, without boiling, until the egg begins to thicken, mix in the chestnut purée and 1 gill of Maraschino, and strain the whole through a tammy-cloth into a basin; Set a freezing.pot in the ice; Wash and dry a quarter lb. of currants, and boil them up in some syrup registering 30°; Stone a quarter lb. of raisins, cut them in halves, and boil them in syrup in the same way; Pour the chestnut cream in the freezing-pot, work it with the spatula until it is partly frozen, add 3 gills of whipped double cream, continue working until the cream is frozen, and mix in the prepared fruit, previously drained; Put the ice in a dome-shaped ice-mould, and finish as directed in the preceding recipe.

When first invented, this pudding was frozen in a bladder instead of in a mould.
A bladder... cause we all have one of them hanging around the kitchen.



Historical Notes
According to tradition this wonderful ice pudding is said to have been originally made by the French chef de cuisine Carême in 1814 for the diplomat Count Karl Von Nesselrode. It became the most popular ice pudding of the nineteenth century and was particularly appreciated by the English upper classes. Carême's follower Monie probably designed the version outlined here as a joke item which poked fun at the English plum pudding, a dish it closely resembles when made in a bladder instead of an ice cream mould. However, Nesselrode Pudding was usually made in a dome-shaped bombe mould to imitate a pudding boiled in a basin. The currants and raisins were poached in syrup to stop them freezing hard in the ice cream mix. The alcoholic maraschino, as well as giving a superb flavour, also helped the ice to remain soft.

Ice puddings were among the most technically challenging dishes for a Victorian cook to make. Some of the most spectacular were invented by Francatelli, who includes a good range of recipes in his two major books The Modern Cook (1846) and The Royal Confectioner (1864). In addition to ice socles in the form of dolphins, he also suggests using stands for ice puddings made of blocks of ice decorated with fresh flowers.

https://www.historicfood.com/Nesselrode Pudding Recipe.htm

 

[Northern Light]

The Contemporary Recipe:

Nesselrode Pudding

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup currants
• 1/2 cup raisins
• Cognac
• 5 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 cups heavy cream
• One 15 oz. can unsweetened chestnut purée (sold in most specialty markets) or 1 cup candied chestnuts, broken into small pieces
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Method

Soak currants and raisins in Cognac barely to cover for 1/2 hour. Drain, reserving the Cognac. Beat egg yolks either in a mixer or with a whisk for about a minute, then add 3/4 cup sugar and continue beating until the mixture is very thick, a light lemon color, and forms a ribbon. Set aside.

Heat 2 cups of the cream in a saucepan just to the boiling point, when small bubbles appear around the sides. Don't let it come to a full boil. Beat the cream into the egg yolk mixture and return it to the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until it coats a spoon thickly. Don't let this mixture boil or you'll have sweet scrambled eggs. Remove from heat.

Stir in either the can of chestnut purée or the candied chestnuts. Add the reserved Cognac, currants, raisins, and vanilla.

Whip the remaining cup of heavy cream until it begins to thicken, then add 3 tablespoons sugar, and continue beating until it is quite firm. Fold this into the chestnut mixture, making sure they are well combined and thoroughly blended.

Lightly oil a 1 1/2–quart melon or charlotte mold and fill with the mixture. Cover securely. Melon molds have a tight-fitting cover with a handle, and so do some charlotte molds. If yours does not, seal the mold with foil and Scotch tape. Leave the mold in the freezer for about 5 to 6 hours, or until frozen solid. About 15 minutes before serving, transfer to the refrigerator. To serve, unmold it onto a chilled serving dish—you may have to run a towel, wrung out in very hot water, over the mold to loosen the pudding or dip the bottom of the mold in hot water for just a second, not long enough to melt it.

Garnish the frozen pudding with whipped cream piped through a pastry tube or with candied fruits.

Yield

8 to 10 servings

(The James Beard Foundation)

 

[Northern Light]

The Modern Recipe for Pie:
NESSELRODE PIE


Recipe for NESSELRODE PIE
The definition for Nesselrode Pie is – A rich frozen pudding made of chopped chestnuts and maraschino cherries and candied fruits and liqueur or rum. It was named after Count Nesselrode who was a prominent Russian diplomat in the middle of the 1800s. As you can see we do not use the chopped chestnuts. It is a great Christmas dessert.

Ingredients for Nesselrode Pie:

• 1 baked 9 inch Pie Shell
• 1 envelope Unflavored Gelatin
• ¼ cup Water
• 3 large Eggs (separate yolks from whites)
• ½ cup Sugar
• 1 cup Milk
• ¼ Tsp Mace (ground)
• ¼ cup Rum or Rum Extract
• ¼ cup diced Candied Fruit (fruit cake mix)
• 1/8 Tsp Salt
• ½ cup heavy Cream, whipped

Method for Nesselrode Pie:
Soften gelatin in water and set aside. Beat egg yolks lightly in top of double boiler. Blend in sugar and milk. Cook 10 minutes over hot (not boiling) water until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in gelatin, mace and rum. Chill until mixture begins to thicken. Mix in candied fruit. Add salt to egg whites; beat until they stand in stiff peaks and fold into custard along with whipped cream. Turn into prepared pie crust. Chill. Just before serving garnish with additional whipped cream and candied cranberries.
www.potspansetcetc.com/492/nesselrode-pie/


Why they left the nessels, I mean chestnuts, out is beyond my ability to explain.

*Oh, and I don't advise that you use the raw egg whites as suggested in the recipe. Use powdered egg white, or just omit them and make an egg white omelet the next morning to make up for eating this the night before.

 

[Northern Light]

Very impressive. Thanks for history.

You are welcome, Donna. This was created in response to your request for Thanksgiving Recipes.

 

[Eleanor Rose]

Wow @Northern Light! I just saw this thread. Great story and great recipe.

 

[Northern Light]

Wow @Northern Light! I just saw this thread. Great story and great recipe.

Thanks, Eleanor! Have you ever heard of or tasted this?

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

I've never heard of this!

 

[Eleanor Rose]

Thanks, Eleanor! Have you ever heard of or tasted this?

I have not, but I'd like to try it.

 

[donna]

I haven't had it either, I don't think. When we were at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island they had these fabulous desserts. All kinds and I remember one looking like this one. I tried several of the desserts.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

I just ordered a can of chestnut puree. I'm going to try this pie. It sounds fabulous but I'm not going to use chopped up cauliflower stems!

 

[nitrofd]

I searched for Nesselrode Pie and i really could not find anything but what i found is a recipe for NESSELRODE PUDDING.
This recipe is from "The Book of Household Management" (1861) authored by Mrs.Isabella Beeton
This is a pretty big recipe.

www.vintagerecipes.net/books/bookofhouseholdmanagement/nesselrode_pudding_3.php

 

[MaryDee]

To get rid of salmonella and other nastiness, you can pasteurize the eggs before hand. This process is easy and very useful for any recipe using meringue in which the whites aren't cooked enough to be safe. It's also useful for making real eggnog!
https://www.wikihow.com/Pasteurize-Eggs
Credit to my youngest granddaughter who pasteurizes the eggs for her special lemon meringue pie!