Tasting History with Max Miller
Published Nov 28, 2023

Decadent vanilla rice pudding with poached pears, chocolate sauce, and candied fruit

City/Region: France
Time Period: 1903

Everything about this dish exudes fanciness, and it comes as no surprise. A ride across the Atlantic on the Hindenburg cost around $9,000 in today’s money, and the whole experience was meant to be luxurious. The head chef on the Hindenburg, Xaver Maier, had worked at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, which was still cooking from the recipes of Auguste Escoffier.

The Escoffier recipe for pears condé seems simple enough, until you realize he references about 5 other recipes in total in order to make the dish. It’s a lot of work, but it’s so good. The rice pudding has such an intense vanilla flavor that really elevates it and is the perfect base for the poached pears. Don’t get too much of the rich chocolate sauce or it will overwhelm the other flavors.

Really you could make just the rice pudding and have that be a fancy dessert all on its own if you don’t want to go to all the fuss.

Poires Condé:
Very small pears which are carefully peeled and shaped are most suitable for this preparation. Those of medium size should be cut in half. Cook them in vanilla-flavored syrup then proceed as for Abricots Condé, recipe 4510.
Abricots Condé:
On a round dish prepare a border of vanilla-flavored Prepared Rice for sweet dishes (recipe 4470)

— Auguste Escoffier, 1903

Ingredients:

Vanilla Rice Pudding
1 heaping cup (250 g) Carolina rice or other long grain rice
1 1/2 cups (300 g) sugar
A pinch of salt
4 cups (1 L) whole milk
3 1/2 tablespoons (50 g) butter
1/2 vanilla pod, scraped, or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla paste or extract
6 egg yolks

Pears
6 small firm pears, or larger ones cut in half
1 1/2 cups (300 g) sugar
5 cups (1.2 L) water
1/2 vanilla pod, scraped, or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla paste or extract

Chocolate Sauce
9 oz (250 g) semisweet chocolate, not chips
1 3/4 cup (400 ml) water
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar*
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter
Candied fruit, whatever you like
Kirschwasser*
Candied or maraschino cherries
*See notes below.

Instructions:

1. For the rice pudding: Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C).
2. Rinse the rice, then add it to boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Drain it and rinse again with warm water.
3. In a wide pan, stir together the milk, sugar, salt, butter, and vanilla (add both the scraped seeds and the pod). Bring to a boil. Once it boils, remove the vanilla pod and stir in the rice. Bring it back to a boil, then cover and set it in the oven for 25 to 40 minutes. Escoffier says 25 to 30, but mine took about 40 minutes. You want most of the liquid to absorb into the rice.
4. Take the rice out of the oven and quickly but gently stir in the egg yolks with a fork. You don’t want to break up the grains of rice. Let it cool to room temperature (it will thicken), then put it in the fridge to chill overnight.
5. Soak candied fruit in kirschwasser overnight.
6. For the pears: The next day, peel the pears. Make a syrup by mixing the sugar, water, and vanilla in a saucepan and cooking it over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.
7. Carefully drop the pears into the syrup and simmer for 15 minutes.
8. For the chocolate sauce: In a saucepan, combine the chocolate, water, and vanilla sugar. Cook it over medium heat until the chocolate melts, then simmer the sauce for 25 minutes. Stir in the cream and butter, until the butter melts, then take it off the heat.
9. To assemble: Mold the chilled rice pudding into whatever shape you like, or simply spoon it onto a serving plate. Sprinkle the top of the rice with the candied fruit that was soaked in the kirschwasser. Set the poached pears on top of that, and decorate with the candied cherries. Drizzle with the chocolate sauce, and serve it forth.

Notes

• If you don’t have vanilla sugar, you should get some because it’s amazing, but you can use regular sugar
• Kirschwasser is a brandy made from Morello cherries that tastes like cherries without being sweet. I used Schladerer Kirschwasser.
• Link to vanilla sugar: https://amzn.to/3sM0eSP

Zeppelin Hindenburg by Dan Grossman, Cheryl Ganz & Patrick Russell: https://amzn.to/47FoVzg
Check out Dan Grossman’s amazing site https://www.airships.net/hindenburg/

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LINKS TO INGREDIENTS & EQUIPMENT**
Vanilla Sugar: https://amzn.to/3sM0eSP

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Subtitles: Jose Mendoza | IG @worldagainstjose

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