Weekly menu - 29th June 2010

 We are still trying to use up the contents of the freezer and the weather here in the UK has been pretty warm so to much cooking has not been high on the agenda. I have a big stash of gluten free bread rolls I got cheap so have been to a large extent been living on salad sandwiches with lots of mustard and cress which I have a really like of currently. I'm waiting on a bunch of seeds to turn up so I can try a whole range of micro salad which is really just the same as mustard and cress just different plants, basically sprouts allowed to grow so they have leaves as well.

This weeks ingredient for the gluten free menu swap was picked by Celiacs in the House and is cabbage. I must admit we mostly eat cabbage in the winter but I do like it cut up thin and fried with a bit of sugar in other words what Chinese takeaways here call crispy fried seaweed ! The recipe she has posted sounds very good as well and I may have to try more things like stuffed cabbage it sounds like a good plan to me.

menu

Monday - roast chicken with boiled new potatoes direct from the allotment (the potatoes not the chicken, we haven't started keeping chickens yet though I would like to.)

Tuesday - Rice or pasta with chicken from Monday.

Wednesday - Hotdog sausages stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon served with creamed savoy cabbage from the IKEA a recipe a day cook book.

Thursday -see what is left to eat up and base something on that.

Friday - Tomato and Eggs.

Daring Bakers do Chocolate Pavlova

The June 2010 Daring Baker's challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

This recipe is gluten free without any adaptions which is a really nice change from most Daring Bakers recipes. However Audax explained to us the difference between the recipe we were given and a traditional Australian Pavlova and his description of the meringue made me very much want to try his version. I have had pavlova a good few times, after all it can be the only dessert I can have at many places.. well that or icecream, however they are nearly always with fairly crispy meringue not the sort he described. The challenge recipe was much more like the ones I'm used to so I decided to use his way of doing it to see the difference. Audax said "Aussie pavlova has a very thin crust that is dry and crisp while the inside is soft and chewy like the lightest marshmallow you have tasted."  The difference is mainly in the cooking method.

I made my meringues as individual portions using the sort of rings you use to shape rosties and so forth, like a big biscuit cutter though the pudding is so rich we ended up sharing one ! I didn't make the pouring sauce to go with it, well I started and made the custard a few days ago but then hot weather and grumpy kids meant I didn't get round to the rest and it went off :(  We are having very hot sapping weather currently, well for us anyway I know from some places it would just be average but us Brits don't do heat !

I really liked the soft middle of the meringue and will certainly consider doing them again like this rather than the crisp meringue I'm more used to so thanks Audax for showing us the difference.. see his post for a look at what the inside of a big Aussie Pavlova looks like it's so different to a standard meringue !

The mousse is fabulously rich and I still have lots in the fridge so do be aware the recipe below makes quite a lot. I don't believe it is possible to have to much chocolate mousse but if you only want enough to top a 3 egg pavlova you might want to cut the recipe in half!

Recipe - Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse

Choc meringue
Instructions are mostly Audax's adapted to make it chocolate as per the challenge recipe.
To get crisp meringues as per the original recipe cook at 200º F (95º C) degrees for 2-3 hours and leave out the cornflour and cream of tartar.

3 large egg whites
½ cup plus 1 tbsp (110 grams) white granulated sugar
¼ cup (30 grams) confectioner’s (icing) sugar
1/3 cup (30 grams) cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons cornflour (corn starch)


Preheat oven to 200°C (395°F). Dust lightly with 1/2 teaspoon cornflour a sheet of baking paper place on a baking tray. Place a 8” (20cm) x 2.5" (60mm) springform cake tin without a bottom as a container to hold the whipped egg whites on the floured baking paper (This size form is for 6 egg whites so you would need a smaller one for the 3 egg whites this recipe is for. I use three smaller rings to get individual ones.)

2. Using an electric mixer on the highest setting, beat egg whites and cream of tartar in a narrow deep bowl until soft peaks form (using a narrow deep bowl ensures the beaters are well into the whites and will build up the greatest volume). Add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating constantly until thick and glossy. Add remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons of cornflour with the last tablespoon of sugar. Dissolving the caster sugar should take about 10-12 mins if using normal granulated sugar about 15 mins. (Test mixture by feeling a small amount of the meringue between two fingers if it is grainy beat longer.)

2a) To make chocolate meringue - Sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder over the egg whites and fold the dry ingredients into the white. (This looks like it will not happen. Fold gently and it will eventually come together.)


3. Spoon meringue into the springform cake tin. Shape the uncooked meringue using the springform cake tin as a guide into one giant meringue. Remove the springform cake tin and place the uncooked meringue cake into the oven. Reduce oven to 100°C (212°F). Bake for 1½ to 2 hours or until dry and crisp, test by tasting a teaspoon of the meringue from the top if it doesn't taste of egg it is done don't worry about the small hole made by this testing it will be covered by the topping. Test at 1½ hours and then every 15 mins until ready. Turn off oven and cool completely in oven (pavlova may sink and crack during cooling). 
I used smaller rings and they were done in 1 hour.

Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse  1 ½ cups (355 mls) double cream (cream with a milk fat content of between 36 and 40 percent)
grated zest of 1 average sized lemon
9 ounces (255 grams) 72% chocolate, chopped
1 2/3 cups (390 mls) mascarpone
pinch of nutmeg
2 tbsp (30 mls) Grand Marnier (or orange juice) (I didn't use this as I was feeding it to small people)

Directions:

1. Put ½ cup (120 mls) of the heavy cream and the lemon zest in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once warm, add the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let sit at room temperature until cool.
2. Place the mascarpone, the remaining cup of cream and nutmeg in a bowl. Whip on low for a minute until the mascarpone is loose. Add the Grand Marnier and whip on medium speed until it holds soft peaks. (DO NOT OVERBEAT AS THE MASCARPONE WILL BREAK.)
3. Mix about ¼ of the mascarpone mixture into the chocolate to lighten. Fold in the remaining mascarpone until well incorporated. Fill a pastry bag with the mousse. Again, you could just free form mousse on top of the pavlova.

For the pouring sauce follow the link to see more Daring Bakers !

Weekly menu swap starting again

 A small but very fragrant posy from the allotment

It's been ages since I posted a weekly menu or participated in the Gluten Free Menu swap and while our food planning is better than it was I have noticed we are slipping a bit again on using things up at the right time and so on and so I am going to start again !

This weeks host is Gluten Free Goodness and she picked raspberries which we love. The ones on the allotment are just starting to colour so we might have a few this week if we get them before the birds or finally finish the fruit cage so we can cover them properly! It is very nearly done now.

I'm working through our freezer at the moment to clear it out so a) we eat the things that we never get round to and b) it can have a proper clean, these things need doing every now and then after all.
As a result the menu is based mostly on that and rather more meat based than I would normally do  as I try to do several vegetarian or very meal light meals every week but most of what we have left in the freezer to eat is meat now.

Monday - Pasta and mince

Tuesday - Omelets

Wednesday - Beef stew

Thursday - Fish pie

Friday - Roast Chicken with vegetable terrine

Daring Cooks - pate

I only seem to be doing posts for Daring bakers and cooks currently. I am going to try and get back into other posts I've just been busy so on the computer less and off actually doing things more which can't be a bad thing really.

So on to the challenge !

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

The various recipes covered most options and we love pate here so I was determined to try at least one. The vegetarian version I've made before and in fact made several to help cater an event late last year so I decided to make the Three Spice Liver Pâté: adapted from Ravenous Couple, which was inspired by White on Rice Couple.

I will copy the recipe below and like most pates it is really very simple to make.  I did make one or two adaptations. We dislike totally smooth pates so I kept back some of the pork belly and added it towards then end so it was roughly chopped not pureed smooth like the rest of the mix. The second adaptation was a mistake ! I totally forgot to add the egg but honestly it was great without it and still held together well which is very useful to know as we have a friend who can't have egg.

 I cooked the pate in several tiny loaf tins which made very good individual portions and I must admit we just eat the bacon with the pate.. never did get this whole discard the bacon lark it's the best bit.!

A tiny loaf tin with sewing thread as a size gauge !

The pate was really good and definitely a recipe to go in the keep file. I'm really sorry I didn't do a bread. I did have a plan of what to do but then we had a freezer incident and had to cook up and eat a lot of things all at once and that rather threw all my plans out. The pate got made mostly because i had just bought the liver when we realised there was a problem, instead I served it with salad, and home made chutney which was lovely.

our coarse version -cos we prefer it this way

Three Spice Liver Pâté
Yields one 25 by 12,5 cm (10 by 5 inch) terrine or loaf pan
1 lb / 454 grams pork liver (or beef or combination)
1/2 lb / 227 grams ground pork
1/2 lb / 227 grams pork fat (or pork belly)
2 cloves garlic
2 shallots
1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp / 2 ml cinnamon
1/2 tsp / 2 ml coriander (ground or crushed)
1/2 tsp / 2 ml cumin
3/4 tsp / 3 ml salt
1 tbps / 15 ml coarse freshly cracked peppercorns
2 tbps / 30 ml cognac
2 bay leaves
1 package of bacon

Preheat oven to to 350ºF (180ºC).
Cut liver and pork fat into small pieces and add to food processor. Add ground pork, garlic, shallots, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. Grind until smooth.
In mixing bowl, incorporate the meat and liver mixture with the cognac and eggs.
Line bottom of baking or ceramic pan with overlapping pieces of bacon. Place a bay leaf on the bottom and then fill with meat/liver mixture. Cover top with another bay leaf and then overlapping pieces of bacon.
Place in oven in the larger baking pan and add enough water to cover 2/3rds of the pan containing the meat/liver mixture. Bake for about 1-1.5 hrs.
The pâté will contract and the juices will be on the bottom. Allow to cool and soak up the juices. Remove any excess bacon and discard the bay leaves.

Daring Cooks do Stacked Enchiladas

 Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh. 

Mexican food is something I love the sound of but can find very little of here, which is strange in a way as we have nearly every other cuisine under the sun!  Coventry is a hugely ethnicly diverse city and within just our little block of streets there must be 20 languages spoken and a similar number at my son's school. We have shops selling Chinese, Indian, South African, Caribbean, Halal, Polish, Thai and so on and that's just in our little local set of shops never mind the rest of the city but pretty much the sum total of Mexican inspired foods is the use of tortillas to make wraps, tacos shells, the occasional tin of refried beans and salsa.

I make Tortillas quite often, so often I have the mix pre-made in a jar, as they are a great easy bread to make and I can use them like nan breads with Indian and to make wraps for sandwiches and so forth so that part was easy.

I use the tortilla recipe from Delightfully Gluten Free but I add just a dribble of glycerine as I find it helps with the stretch of the dough and I can get them thinner without breaking.

So first stage done.. mini tortillas, cut out with a biscuit cutter so they are about 4" wide and I added poppy seeds just because it sounded fun! By making them small I could get four stacks in my dish to go in the oven.

I looked all over and the only place I could find tomatillos was in quite large tins by mail order and if we didn't like them I'd end up with a lot left over so very reluctantly I decided I would have to do a different version. I will of course probably find six different places selling them after the challenge is over, that's always the way isn't it?

I decided instead to do the mole sauce from here which the hosts had suggested as a replacement, as we have never had a mole sauce before either  it was still a challenge, particularly as the list of ingredients sounded very strange, chocolate and peanut butter with tomatoes? Still I had everything but the chillies. We have lots of chillies for sale here in the market and ethnic shops but this recipe calls for chipotle peppers which are apparently smoked and I really though I was out of luck on that one as well but at the last moment found some in Morrisons !

It's really nice to, I've very glad I had an excuse to pick that jar up as I think I will use it in other dishes too. So all ingredients acquired I set to making the sauce, which was really very easy and smelt really interesting, here it is bubbling away before I blitzed it smooth!

Tom and I really liked the taste though Jon wasn't so convinced, we decided the closest we have had before would be a satay sauce.
So on to the construction of the dish, to the sauce and tortillas I added some precooked turkey and cheddar cheese and layered it up in stages, very like making a lasagne really which is what that dish is more normally used for in this household.

So after a couple of layers of tortillas, turkey, sauce and cheese, it was topped with more torillas, sauce and a bit of cheese and put in the oven.. for a bit to long really so mine is less pretty than most of the other Daring Cooks but I caught it before it really burned! 

So here is the final dish, served with rice, very tasty and something I will certainly be considering doing again soon in one form or another. I loved the different taste of the mole sauce but the dish as a whole wasn't so un-usual I couldn't see serving it to friends or family which is nice.

Recipes.

GF Flour Tortillas (based on a recipe from Delightfully Gluten free)

1/4 cup each of cornflour (corn starch), tapioca flour, potato starch.
1/2 cup of Dove farm rice flour (which is mixed brown and white)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp glycerine
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 to 3/4 cup of water (enough to make a nice dough)

Mix all the dry ingredients, then add the oil and glycerine. Finally add water to mix. Leave to sit for a few minutes then roll out as thin as possible by making small balls of dough, flattening them then rolling to size.
Cook in a dry pan with just a touch of oil for a minute or so each side.

Mole sauce (based on recipe from food network)

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tin of chopped tomatoes.
1 sweet pepper, chopped
heaped tsp of chipolte pepper
1/2 pint chicken stock
2 tbsps smooth peanut butter
2 oz dark chocolate

The original recipe had chilli powder as well but as most of us are not used to chilli I stuck to just the chipolte peppers for the first time which gave it a bit of a kick but not too strong for us.

Saute onion in oil till translucent, add garlic and spices and saute to toast spices a bit. Add all other ingredients and simmer of 10 mins, Puree till smooth.

Stacked Enchiladas
Put a small amount of sauce in the bottom of a oven dish. Add a layer of tortillas, top with turkey, cheese and a little more sauce. Repeat this layer then add a final layer of tortillas, more sauce and some cheese.

Bake for about 20 mins to melt cheese and heat through.

Hosting Daring Bakers - British Suet Puddings.

This month has been a very interesting one. I offered a while ago to host Daring Bakers and was given a slot in the summer and then a couple of days before the beginning of this month I got an email, please would I consider doing this month instead? I had an idea of what I wanted to do so all though I hadn't done the prep for it so I said yes and so at the last minute I threw together a challenge post.

This is the blog checking line (for the automatic checking to see if we joined in this month) seems a tad silly when I hosted but just bear with me!!
The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

So there you have it I challenged everyone to make British puddings, preferably using suet. I knew when I set the challenge most people outside Britain wouldn't have used suet, although it is theoretically available anywhere that eats cows or sheet most countries seem to use it only as bird food but here in the UK we have a long history of using every bit if the animal we can. What I didn't realise was how new the idea of steaming a cake or pie would be for the vast majority of Daring Bakers. If I had I would have down played the suet and focused more on the steaming as I put a few people off with the animal fat thing.. However many did try the challenge including many who do not eat animal fat and indeed some of the most fabulous sounding puddings were vegan or vegetarian.

I have included the challenge post as it went up on the Daring Bakers site at the end of this post.
Please do check out the Daring Kitchen site in a day or so when you will be able to see the whole range of puddings and indeed you can check the various blog postings via the blog roll there. Particular mention must go to Audax who is always does multiple versions of the challenge recipe but this time excelled himself and did 16 different versions!!  Plus all of them looked fantastic unlike some of my attempts and he was very complimentary and surprised by some of our traditional dishes.

Even though steamed puddings are a common dish for me I learnt an few things from hosting this challenge.
1) Steam a suet crust pudding like steak and kidney for 5 hours and it becomes golden brown, flaky pastry which is much better than the slightly under done stodgy stuff people sometimes serve.
2) Suet crust works really well on baked pies and is one of the best gltuen free pie crusts I've tried so far.
3) Add some glycerine to it which helps it stay together and it makes a great sausage roll pastry.
4) Because suet melts at such a low temperature it incorporates into the other ingredients very well and you don't get that fatty taste you get with other animal fats and indeed veggy substitutes when it's cold.
5) Most cultures don't steam anything other than the occasional veg !
6) Always butter the dish if you want any chance of turning the pudding out!

Anyway as I didn't have time in advance to make any versions of the recipe here are a few random ones I did over the month.. Well actually the first one was done in advance, several months in advance as it is the last of the Christmas puds I made a month or so before Christmas but properly made Christmas puds last months.

Served with Cream AND Custard :)

I also made a streamed chocolate sponge but forgot to butter the dish so it fell apart so there is no picture of the whole pudding, however it was very tasty with choclate fudge sauce!

 I tried and failed with a Sussex Pond pudding, I think I managed to misread the ingredients of something as others made much better ones, my however seemed to have lost all the moisture inside so there was no source.

A boiled version next because while I've done many steamed ones I don't think I've ever done the boiled in a cloth method.
Now this is NOT a method to use to get a pretty dish to be honest so please forgive the look of the final pudding, Audax has already given us a much better looking one. You will get a better looking dish if you steam it I promise! However I wanted to try a savory rolly polly and you generally boil them plus as I said I've not done a boiled one and was curious to see the difference.
So firstly the pastry, this is the standard suet crust, twice as much flour as suet, this one is a veg suet as I had some left over and had it out to take a photo for the main challenge post.
Not much to say really.. it's white, it's doughy, what else are you going to get with flour and fat really! I used a bought gluten free flour mix but honestly it would be able to same with normal flour. I've added a photo to the challenge post of the pastry.
The most common rolly polly is a jam one.. but i did a bacon and onion one because I wanted a main course pudding not a pudding pudding!.
Roll out pastry, cover with filling.

Roll into a log, squish ends to keep filling in. Wrap in greaseproof paper, then wrap in a floured cloth, in my case an old muslin square. Tie up with string, not to tightly cos it swells up a bit.

Then put it in to boil for an hour and a half, covered with a lid.

This is what it looked like once i unrolled it.. I rather failed on getting it out of the water and cracked the pastry.. steamed ones being in a bowl are less likly to just fall to bits!

and finally plated up.. Boiled pastry stays much whiter and obviously a bit damper than the steamed versions but it was very tasty..really a huge boiled stuffed dumpling and we all like dumplings too. Very filling too however as I said it isn't going to win and beauty prize.

I also did a suet crest on a great chicken, bacon and mushroom pie.

This time it was baked and honestly I can say it is one of the best pie crusts I've had. It works very well gluten free and with a bit of glycerine added to stablise the pastry when raw it makes great sauasge rolls !

Finally the one at the start of the post is a golden syrup sponge but I cheated on that one as it was in fact microwaved !  We normally steam such puddings but when people want pudding now not in an hour and a half microwaving works really well at least for basic sponge puddings !

(Editted to add - Microwaving takes 3-4 mins depending on your power level. I did 3 mins at 1000, the recipe said 4 mins on full but the age of the book means that would probably translate to about 600, maybe 800 )

The Original Challenge post
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The challenge I would like to set you this month is to try a very British dish and a very British ingredient.

The actual recipes (I am giving you a choice) are pretty simple really but the cooking method and the core ingredient are something that many people do not use or do on a regular basis if at all.

Those of you who know me might be surprised that as one of the early Alternative Daring Bakers I’m not doing a gluten-free recipe but we have just had one of those and I wanted to do a traditional British pudding and honestly a gluten-free traditional British pudding is a rare beast but the type I have chosen are very easy to convert.

These are very homely dishes but I thought that would be an interesting contrast to some of the very decorative dishes we often do and I am sure some of our members will still make them look spectacular!

Some of you will know about the British and the word pudding but for those that don't we use the word for many things:

1) Black pudding and white pudding a sort of meat and grain sausage.  Black pudding uses blood as well as meat.
2) Pudding — a generic word for desert
3) Pudding — any dish cooked in a pudding bowl or pudding cloth normally steamed, boiled but sometimes baked.
4) An endearment i.e., "How are you today my pudding?"

For this challenge we are using the third meaning a dish cooked in a pudding bowl or cloth, though many of you may opt to do a sweet version in which case version two also applies!

The special ingredient is suet. Please, please don't worry if you can't get it. I will be suggesting alternatives but if you want to stretch yourselves and try some very traditional British dishes do try and source some as it does make a difference to the texture and Daring Bakers is all about trying things you wouldn't normal do or use. Please remember there are alternatives so please don’t worry if you can’t get or don’t want to use suet !

So what is suet?

It is the hard but flaky fat found on the inside of a cow or sheep around the kidneys and that area of the body. Suet in its raw form crumbles easily into small chunks so much so that my butcher says it covers his floor in bits if he doesn't have it taken out as soon as possible. In fact unless he knows he has a customer for it he has the abattoir take it out and throw it away and when I want some he gives it to me for free! It also melts at quite a low temperature, which has an effect on how it works in cooking. In some places such as the UK it is sold processed which basically means it is grated and combined with flour to keep the individual pieces from clumping together, and it becomes a sort of dried out short strands, almost granular in texture.

For people on a gluten-free diet like myself be careful as most if not all the processed stuff uses wheat flour, though the vegetarian version normally uses rice flour. As I said I get mine direct from the butcher and I suggest if you want to try this challenge fully you go down to your local butcher and ask them if they can source some for you. If they can it will not be expensive as it is just fat and they might even give it you for free!.

For those going “Yuck! Fat from the inside of an animal … no thank you!”, I have some good news. There is a vegetable suet available here and indeed anyone can substitute a hard, white vegetable fat. Wikipedia says the UK vegetable suet is made from palm oil so something of that ilk would work. I am led to believe a vegetable shortening, like Crisco will give you a similar effect. So please feel free to use whatever you feel most comfortable with or can get. Lard is also a possibility. Ideally steer clear of things like butter or soft margarine as you will get a very different texture and taste however if you are not comfortable using any of the fats I've suggested I am providing some links to recipes using butter right at the bottom (and one vegan) but read all the tips before that anyway You could even try substituting something like Coconut oil if you wish but in both these cases try a sponge pudding first as they are more tolerant of such changes.

However, back to the real stuff assuming you feel happy to use it. If you manage to get some from the butcher you will end up with something very much like this.

 The packet stuff looks like this both the meat and veggy versions which is probably easier for most people to deal with if you can get it.

However if you are going the whole hog and trying the fresh stuff then the fat then needs separating from the membrane that holds it loosely together. Personally I normally just pull it apart with my hands and crumble the fat off the membrane but if you wish to make sure you completely remove everything except the pure fat you need to render it.

To render the fat, chop or grate it up and put in a pan. Then you slowly heat it over a low flame until it is completely melted. Carefully, because hot fat is very much not something you want to get on your skin, pour it into a sieve lined with cheesecloth to remove all the little bits of membrane and such like from the pure fat. If it still has bits in reheat until liquid and restrain.

So once you have your suet or suet substitute, what are we going to make with it? The answer to that is of course suet pudding. However I am giving you not one but two forms of suet pudding and both can be either savory or sweet so you have lots of options to play about with the idea.

The two basic types are a suet crust pudding with a filling or a suet sponge pudding. Examples of a pudding with a crust are a steak and kidney pudding or a Sussex pond pudding and examples of the sponge pudding are spotted dick, Christmas pudding and college pudding.

Both types are traditionally steamed in a pudding basin for at least an hour and this is a technique I know some people rarely, if ever, use. However it is very simple and can be done with the simplest of equipment. All you really need is a reasonable size saucepan with a lid, ideally with a heat proof plate or a steamer rack to go in the bottom of the pan and heat proof bowl or similar container to cook the pudding in. You can even go more basic than that and wrap the pudding in a cloth and hang it in the pot of water to boil!

Other uses for suet include dumplings for stew, making mincemeat for mince-pies, mixing with seeds to make fat balls for birds and as an extremely high calorie survival food for extreme environments such as arctic expeditions.

So the required elements of this challenge are:

1) to make a suet pudding using real suet or as close a replacement as you can manage or is acceptable to you; and
2) to cook it by steaming or if you want to be even more traditional by boiling tied up in a cloth.

Due to the short amount of time I ended up having to get this challenge together I have not tried out all the recipes recently, however they are all ones I have either used in the past or from sources I know to be extremely good for these sort of recipes.

Recipe Source:  Recipes come from the following sources: Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course, The pudding club (www.puddingclub.com),  Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management and the Dairy Book of Home Cooking and my family’s recipe notes!

Blog-checking lines:  The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient:  suet. 

Posting Date:  April 27, 2010

Notes:  Fresh suet should be kept in the fridge or do what I do and freeze it. I crumble off what I want as I go straight from the freezer. The boxed stuff can live in the cupboard.

The easiest way to steam a pudding is in a dedicated steamer as the water is kept away from the pudding so it can’t boil over. If, however, you don’t have a steamer use a pan large enough to easily fit the bowl you are cooking. Don’t fill the water more than about a third of the way up the bowl or it may boil over and into the bowl. Keep an eye and top up as needed with boiling water.

You need to lift the bowl off the bottom of the pan. This can be done with a steamer stand, an upturned plate or even crumpled up kitchen foil — anything that can stand being in boiling water and lifts the bowl off the bottom of the pan will work.

Make sure you have a well-fitted lid on the pan as you want the steam to cook the pudding not to boil off.

Make sure you put a pleat in the foil or paper you cover the bowl with to allow for expansion and then tie down tightly with string.

This is a bowl ready for the steamer, note the handle made from the string that also ties it together around the top.. this makes it very much easier to lift out when hot and is well worth doing.  

This bowl is actually a Christmas pudding I made before Christmas which is also a suet pudding but unlike most made to keep for months rather than used straight away.

Variations allowed:  You are allowed completely free rein on flavours and fillings and I am very much looking forward to seeing where the Daring Bakers take a very traditional dish like this.

Any variations due to restricted diets are of course allowed. Due to the way these recipes are cooked it’s very easy to substitute for gluten-free flours and get very much the same results as wheat. Do try your favorite flour mix as these are much more tolerant of flour changes than most pasty.

They can be made vegetarian and even vegan just by using the vegetarian replacement suet and an appropriate flavour/filling.

Preparation time:  Preparation time is 5 to 20 minutes depending on the filling. Cooking time is 1 to 5 hours so do this on a day you have jobs around the house to do or are popping in and out as you need to occasionally check the pan hasn’t boiled dry! However it is otherwise a very low time requirement dish.

Equipment required:• 2 pint (1 litre) pudding bowl or steam-able containers to contain a similar amount they should be higher rather than wide and low
Traditional pudding bowl so you know what is normally used.

• Steamer or large pan, ideally with a steaming stand, upturned plate or crumpled up piece of kitchen foil
• Mixing bowl
• Spoon
• Measuring cups or scales
• Foil or grease proof paper to cover the bowl
• String

Type 1 Puddings — suet crusts.
                       
Pudding Crust for both Savoury Pudding or Sweet Pudding (using suet or a suet substitute):

Ingredients

(250 grams/12 ounces) Self-raising flour (Note* If you cannot find self-raising flour, use a combination of all-purpose flour and baking powder.)
(175 grams/6 ounces) Shredded suet or suet substitute (i.e., Vegetable Suet, Crisco, Lard)
(a pinch) Salt and pepper  (Note* If making a savory dish, can be replaced with spices for sweet if wished.)
(210 millilitres/a little less than a cup) Water  (Note* You can use a milk or a water and milk mix for a richer pastry.)

1. Mix the flour and suet together.
2. Season the flour and suet mixture with salt and pepper if savory and just a bit of salt and/or spices if sweet.
3. Add the water, a tablespoonful at a time, as you mix the ingredients together. Make up the pastry to firm an elastic dough that leaves the bowl clean.  The liquid amounts are only an estimate and most recipes just say water to mix.

4. Don’t over handle the pastry or it will be too hard.
5. Reserve a quarter for the lid and roll out the rest and line a well-greased bowl.
6. At this point add your filling.. a couple of options are give below but have fun and go wild!
7. Roll the final piece of pastry out into a circle big enough to cover the top of the basin, dampen the edges and put in position on the pudding, pinching the edges together to seal.
8. Seal well and cover with a double sheet of foil – pleated in the centre to allow room for expansion while cooking. Secure with string, and place it in a steamer over boiling water.
9. Steam for up to 5 hours, you may need to add more boiling water halfway through or possibly more often. There is a lot of leeway in this steaming time and different recipes give different steaming times. Delia Smith says 5 hours for Steak and kidney where as Mrs Beeton says 2.5 for a similar dish!  One way to tell that it is cooked is when the pastry changes colour and goes from white to a sort of light golden brown. It is also hard to over steam a pudding so you can leave it bubbling away until you are ready.

This one is a steak and onion one cooked for 1.5 hours. (however as others have shown they come out even better if you steam for longer 3 to 5 hours is much better.)

This sort of pastry can also be used as a topping for a baked meat pie and becomes quite a light crusty pastry when baked.

Savoury Pudding Filling options: steak and kidney pudding.

1 full amount of suet crust (see recipe above)
(450 grams/about 1 pound) Chuck steak
(225 grams/about 1/2 a pound) Ox kidney
1 medium-sized onion
2 teaspoons well-seasoned flour
splash of Worcestershire sauce

1. Chop the steak and kidney into fairly small cubes, toss them in seasoned flour, then add them to the pastry lined basin.
2. Pop the onion slices in here and there.
3. Add enough cold water to reach almost to the top of the meat and sprinkle in a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and season with salt and pepper.
4. Follow the rest of the instructions in the crust recipe to finish pudding.
5. Cook for at least 2.5 hours (Mrs Beeton) up to 5 hours (Delia Smith).

Sweet Pudding Options: Sussex Pond Pudding

1 amount of suet pastry (see recipe above)
(120 grams/4.2 ounces) Demerara Sugar
(120 grams/4.2 ounces) unsalted butter
1 large lemon

1. Cut the butter into small pieces and put half in the basin with half the sugar.
2. Prick the whole lemon (preferably one with a thin skin) all over, using a thick skewer.
3. Place on top of the butter and sugar in the basin.
4. Cover with the rest of the butter and sugar.
5. Finish building the pudding as per the pastry recipe.
6. Steam for 3 ½ hours, or longer (for a really tender lemon), adding more water if needed.
7. To serve, turn the pudding into a dish with a deep rim, when you slice into it the rich lemon sauce will gush out.
8. Make sure each person is served some of the suet crust, lemon and tangy luscious sauce.

Type 2 puddings – Steamed Suet Pudding, sponge type.

(100 grams/4 ounces) All-purpose flour
(1/4 teaspoon) salt
(1.5 teaspoons) Baking powder
(100 grams/4 ounces) breadcrumbs
(75 grams/3 ounces) Caster sugar
(75 grams/ 3 ounces) Shredded suet or suet substitute (i.e., Vegetable Suet, Crisco, Lard)
(1) large egg
(6 to 8 tablespoons) Cold milk

1. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into bowl.
2. Add breadcrumbs, sugar and suet.
3. Mix to a soft batter with beaten egg and milk
4. Turn into a buttered 1 litre/ 2pint pudding basin and cover securely with buttered greaseproof paper or aluminum foil.
5. Steam steadily for 2.5 to 3 hours
6. Turn out onto warm plate, Serve with sweet sauce to taste such as custard, caramel or a sweetened fruit sauce.

Variants:
Spotted Dick -  Add 75g/ 3oz currants and 25g/1 oz of mixed chopped peel with the sugar.
Syrup or Treacle or Marmalade Pudding – put 2 Tablespoons of golden syrup, treacle or marmalade at the bottom of the bowl before adding pudding mix.
My Fair Lady Pudding – Add finely grated rind of 1 medium orange or lemon with the sugar.
Ginger Pudding – replace the sugar with  100g/4oz of treacle, and add 1/2 tsp ground ginger.

Additional Information: 

Suet:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suet.

Suet substitutes:  http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/suet.

Vegetable suet:  http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Dictionary/V/Vegetable-suet-6708.aspx.

Delia Smith shows you how to make suet pastry with step-by-step photos here: (http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/baking/how-to-make-suet-pastry.html).

Video of the whole process of making a suet crust pudding.
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-steak-mushroom-pudding-317626/

Video of making a steamed pudding:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afQ6g0R8pMc.

A very good place to find recipes for many British puddings is the Pudding Club website http://www.puddingclub.com/.

Steamed Pudding:  http://www.puddings.net/desserts/puddings/steamedpuddings/preparing.shtml. 

Mrs Beeton of course had many suet based puddings in her book and thefoody.com lists many of them. Some are described as boiled but nearly all can be steamed in a bowl in the same way as the full recipes I've give here including Staffordshire Fig Pudding: (http://thefoody.com/mrsbpudding/staffordshire.html), boiled raisin Pudding (http://thefoody.com/mrsbpudding/boiledraisin.html), Boiled Rhubarb Pudding (http://thefoody.com/mrsbpudding/rhubarbpudding.html), ginger pudding (http://thefoody.com/mrsbpudding/gingerpudding.html) and several more.
Christmas Pudding

Bacon and Leek Pudding:
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/03/01/116229/Bacon-and-Leek-Suet-Pudding.htm

Butter based versions of steamed pudding

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3157/rhubarb-steamed-pudding
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/sweet/steamed-treacle-sponge-pudding.html
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/8185/sticky-gingerbread-pudding-with-toffee-sauce

Found a vegan one I can't vouch for it but thought it might be a starting point for someone.
http://www.scarlettdesign.co.uk/go-vegan/pudding.html

The whole of Mrs Beeton on line
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/beeton/isabella/household/
and just the puddings
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/beeton/isabella/household/chapter27.html

Sorry for the absence

I have been really busy and even missed both a Daring Baker and a Daring cook challenge of the last few weeks. However I will be back and with a big post in about a week as one of the reasons I have been so busy is at the last minute I agree to host this months Daring Baker challenge. What i chose you will have to wait and see.

I have also been busy as part of the team making a giant mouse!! 

Met Mac.