Friday, March 6, 2009

My Friend Sheila's Rasher Pudding

My friend Sheila is from an old Hampshire family - not in-comers like us! She has this recipe for "Rasher Pudding" (you have to pronouce it "raaasher puddn" to be authentic). I have subsequently found versions of it on the web and in my precious book "The Cookery of England" by Elizabeth Ayrton. Ayrton describes is as "a substantial but cheap dish for the servants of the hunt and their children." It seems to be a dish from Hampshire and Dorset. It isn't slimming!


- For the suet pastry:-
250g self raising flour,
pinch of salt
1 tspn lemon zest
125g suet
6-8 tblspns water - with a squeeze of lemon juice

Make it into a dough and then rest it in the fridge for about 20 minutes.
Roll out the pastry on a floured surface
Sprinkle it generously with bacon scraps and chopped onion (I prefer the onion lightly fried first, it makes the flavour sweeter)
Roll it up and season it


Cooking it is a bit of trial and error - Sheila says you can wrap it in foil and bake it, or the traditional way would be to steam it over boiling water for about an hour. Anything you can steam, you can usually microwave. The most successful combination I have tried is to cover it in clingfilm and cook in the microwave (I did it on level 2 for 7 minutes) then finish it off in the oven (200 degrees c. for about 20 minutes).

Comfort Food.

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