Budín de Zanahoria (carrot pudding)

 I've decided. Come five, ten years from now I want to have a set collection of Thanksgiving recipes that we make year after year. The tried + true's. Last year I found our tried + true cranberry sauce (which I have since lost. a project for another day.) And this year I discovered one of our tried + true sides. I am not one for cooked carrots, I choke that junk down with huge gulps of water and then only when I have to-- but thankfully this dish blows all memories of those nasty little soggy orange discs out of the park.

Here's two versions of the recipe--the first I can vouch for, the second I plan to try. I'm feeling the rum add but would take away the chopped walnuts. (Marmousch said that the nuts looked like something that rhymes with shmomit anyway.) From Diane Kennedy's The Cuisines of Mexico, and I found it in the 2009 San Francisco Chowing with the Hounds picnic recipes.

Budín de Zanahoria (Carrot Pudding)

Serves 6

Ingredients:
A food mill
2 pounds boiled carrots
6 ounces unsalted butter
A mixer
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup granulated sugar
6 ounces rice flour, sifted (I've always used all-purpose white flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 pound queso fresco, grated
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.
Pass the carrots through the medium disc of a food mill. (I used a food processor and all was fine.)
Melt the butter and set it aside to cool.
Setting the egg whites aside, beat the yolks until they're thick. Add the sugar and continue beating until it is well incorporated. Beat in the flour alternately with the butter.
Stir in the carrots, salt and cheese, mix well, and lastly add the baking powder.
Beat the egg whites until they are stiff and fold them into the mixture.
Pour the mixture into a buttered pyrex dish. Place it on a baking sheet and rack 2/3 down into oven and bake for 10 minutes. Then lower the over temperature to 350 degrees and continue cooking for about 55 minutes. The budín should be soft and spongy to the touch - the top and sides nicely browned, but the inside moist.
Serve immediately, with the orange and walnut sauce to accompany it.

Kennedy advises that when making this dish with carrots, rather than the standard peas, you should serve it with coarse salt and thick sour cream, but I've always ignored her and just served it with the orange walnut sauce (2 cups oj with 3/4 cups walnuts).

Budín Nuevo de Zanahoria (New Carrot Pudding)

Pudding
2 pounds peeled and steamed carrots
6 ounces unsalted butter
3 egg yolks and 5 egg whites.
1/2 cup brown sugar sugar
6 ounces rice flour, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 pound jack cheese, grated
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Zest of 1 orange
1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cumin

Sauce
2 cups orange juice
1 tbsp sugar
1 pinch cinnamon
1 tbsp rum
3/4 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Pass the carrots through a food mill, ricer, or food processor. Melt the butter and set it aside to cool. Beat yolks well. Add the sugar and beat until well mixed. Beat in flour and butter. Stir in the carrots, salt, cheese, zest, nutmeg, cumin, and baking powder. Mix well. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into mixture.

Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish (no larger than 9x13). Bake at 500F for 10 minutes. Lower temperature to 350 and bake for another 55 minutes.

Meanwhile, add the orange juice and sugar to a pot and reduce liquid by half. Stir in cinnamon. Add rum and simmer for another couple minutes to cook off some of the alcohol. Keep warm until pudding is ready.

When sides are well browned and pudding is spongy to the touch in the center, remove from oven. Pour sauce evenly over top, scatter walnuts, and serve.