Spotted Dick

[Bondbug 32]

Seeing Erialc's Yorkshire puds, which are nearly as good as those my beloved wife (who as usual is looking over my shoulder) makes with the roast beef, may I ask for her advice, beautiful pictures etc. on the subject of Spotted Dick.

On this subject I am free to talk without worrying about the Missus. This was one of the standard steam puds of my youth, but wife's mother never made them so she knaas nowt about it.

 

To me it is a basic steamed pudding with dried fruit stirred in rather than treacle, marmalade or whatever in the bottom of the basin. But with suet, self-raising and breadcrumbs for the mix.

Not in a clout in water, but steamed, covered, in a steamer or pan, or these days in a pressure cooker.

 

I've just sent a recipe to Grey Eagle, but I am not sure if my idea is right. Can erialc or any other help?

 

Does anybody still eat steam puddings? Plenty of custard.

 

I used to think it was a north of England thing, but last time I saw it on offer was in a workies caff in Portsmouth, with faggots as the main course.

[gogoblender 3,070]

This sounds wonderful, bondbug. I am the world's biggest fan of custard and tapioca. Any of the deserts that are creamish in flavor and consistency quickly find their way to my palate after a nice meal. In fact, they often find their way before

Do you think you could perhaps post the recipe here as well? Wife minding of course

It actually sounds like something my gramma used to make. She's Sri Lankan, but the island was a big brit colony before, so a lot of the things that Tim, Erialc and a few others here from Britain talk about set off gastronomic echoes from my youth.

Next time you make this how bout a pic!

 

gogo

[Bondbug 32]

Next time you make this how bout a pic!

 

gogo[/color]

Well; yes...er...but me I haven't made one for about 50 years. I eat them any time I can get wifey to stop saying she doesn't know what they are and actually make one.

I'll wait and see if we get any response from the expert chefs. Then I may even try my hand next week when she-who-must-be-obeyed is away in GB.

You only get photos of things that look good enough to eat.

For a change from custard try a white sauce with rum in it. But mind it don't curdle.

[erialc 2]

Oh wow Bondbug! I have to admit I have never made one...ever...I do remember my Mom and my Nan making the most wonderful 'proper' steamed puddings...and yes in a pressure cooker lol I was so terrified of those contraptions...I was always expecting them to explode food everywhere. Sorry I can't help with a recipe it would be great to get one though as my kids are fiends for having dessert so to get them to make something like that would be great. I'd love to see your recipe and pics of said pud though! I hope you can get to make one and show us all here....hmm I'm proper starving now! Good job I have a sausage cassarole cooking away in the oven

 

On...suet....I bet you know how to make proper dumplings!?!...they are a black art to me in fact the only 'baking' I can say I can successfully make is Yorkshires so if you could maybe do a guide for Spotted Dick and one for dumplings that would be awesome.

[Bondbug 32]

OK. Spotted Dick and dumplings. I'll dig, but unfortunately my treasured wife is off to GB tomorrow for a week and she is the authority. Will come back to you soon as poss

Edited May 14, 2007 by Bondbug

[Bondbug 32]

No photos till someone tell me how it is done. But herewith Spotted Dick and Dumplings, two suetty favourites.

 

Spotted Dick

To me it is a basic steamed pudding with dried fruits in (currants and/or sultanas) – I.e. ‘spotted’.

 

So my recipe:

for 4-6, uses a 1.5-2 pint pudding basin with a good rim.

6 oz self-raising flour

1 level tsp baking powder

3 oz fresh white breadcrumbs

4 oz shredded beef suet

4 oz sugar

1 egg

milk to mix

a very little salt (to taste)

3 oz dried fruit (currants and/or sultanas)

 

Sift flour, baking powder, salt into miing bowl, add breadcrumbs, suet, sugar, dried fruit and mix well

Lightly beat the egg and stir into mix with sufficient milk, to make what my book calls a ‘soft dropping consistency’. Make sure it is smooth, then mix in the dried fruit.

Butter the pudding basin. Spoon in mixture till 2/3rds full.

Cover with double thickness of buttered greaseproof paper, pleated across the middle of the basin to allow for expansion, and secure with string under the outer lip of the basin.

If you have a double pan with a steamer upper half, use that – lower half ½ full of boiling water.

Otherwise place the basin on an upturned saucer in a saucepan and fill with boiling water up to 2/3rds way up the outside of the basin.

Cook 2 to 2hr30m. If the pan needs topping up, use boiling water.

A pressure cooker is much more to the point. Cooking time depends on the weight that closes the top vent. If you have a pressure cooker book you may find guidance. Perhaps instructions for a ‘fruit sponge pudding’ that is much the same without the suet.

If you have ever made steamed puddings like treacle pudding, jam pudding, this is the same basic mix and technique, but mixing-in dried fruit instead of putting a jam, marmalade or golden syrup ‘sauce’ in the bottom of the basin.

Plenty of not-too-thick custard, is. But any suitable sweet sauce (white sauce with a dash of rum?) would do.

 

Suet Dumplings.

No meat stew is complete without them and they are the simplest of all recipes, originating in Norfolk apparently.

 

No need for quantities. Mix flour and suet, 2 of flour to 1 of suet, salt and pepper to taste. Mix with water into a soft firm dough. Roll into balls about the size of golf balls or walnuts. Drop gently into the stew about 20 minutes before the end of its cooking time.

Dead easy.

You can add some baking powder to the mix (the container will tell you how much per total combined weight of flour and suet) OR you can add some breadcrumbs, as in the suet pudding recipe. This is a traditional way of lightening the mix.

You can also add a pinch or two of parsley, chives, sage, or your own favourite herb, if you like - de-li-ca-te-ly.

 

BUT TAKE CARE. As with pastry, dumplings need a light hand. Mix the dough with a knife blade or spatula. Handle gently. Hot hands, or too much vigour may slightly melt the suet and you may get cannon balls.

 

I have a picture entitled "parsley dumplings set off a cider-flavoured beef stew from Devon", if someone can tell me how to post it in here. Not very good with photos but I can learn. It is a scanned image of a photo in .jpg format, but that can no doubt be changed

Edited May 16, 2007 by Bondbug

[gogoblender 3,070]

ahh, bondbug your thread has taken off nicely.

And now, my interest has been piqued and I am curious as to how this wonderful sounding desert of yours looks.

So here is how you can go about putting up the pics.

Careful though, for putting up pics can quickly become addictive

 

Most of us here that are posting images do so by putting the link to an image that they find on the net. If that is the case, then that image is already hosted and by simply right clicking on the picture's addy at the top left of your screen, copying and then pasting it here into this forum, the image's link will appear for any of us to click on.

If you use the image tag button at the top of the writing area here, it will automatically put image tags around your link which will make the image automatically appear anytime someone clicks on that post.

 

Now if in the case you have an image that you wish to be hosted, most of use an image hosting site, like photobucket.

 

Here is the link, and they are probably one of the biggest in the world now:

 

http://photobucket.com

 

Once you have your own account there you can upload images, files , movies, anything. The bucket site will ask you to upload your image to their database and provide you with a link that you can then place here on our site or anywhere else wish to put it.

 

 

They offer a number of sizes. Usually the one that works best here is the size for Message Boards.

In either case, they have tons of easy one-step buttons that allow you to resize your image as you wish it to look.

 

Hope this helps and looking forward to your delicious sounding delicacy.

 

Cheers!

 

gogo

[erialc 2]

Bondbug..... Thanks for your recipe....muwahaha I have to make dumplings and try to impress the kids with spotted dick! Though oddly when I bake they kind of chuckle and loose their appetites!

 

If you have any trouble posting your pics please give me a shout

[Bondbug 32]

my kids are fiends for having dessert so to get them to make something ....

 

I would have thought they would like blancmange, and that would be no problem for them to make - milk, a little cornflower, a little sugar, flavour to taste...like making a thick custard, putting it in a mould and leaving it to set.

 

Is blancmange still around or has it disappeared like so many of the old standards.

Do you remember barley kernel pudding? It was a regular when I (and perhaps your gran) were kids. One of the 'boring' old milk puddings that so many do not like because they were a part of their school dinners. A lot disappeared shortly after the Hitler war, a bit like turnips (or perhaps swedes to you, rutabaga to the US) did in France because some French ate nearly nothing else for some years after 1940.

Edited May 17, 2007 by Bondbug

[Bondbug 32]

Double posting!

But for mouth watering steam pudding pix try this link http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/selecti...ad,1497,RS.html

 

You will notice that her Spotted Dick' is the swiss-roll variety

which is perhaps the correct one. Make the dough, roll it out, sprinkle on the dried fruit, roll it up. Mine looks like the treacle pud

without the treacle (golden syrup, why do we still call it 'treacle' when 'treacle' is different) but with the fruit stirred into the dough and therefore spotted like a dalmation dog.

 

I have to emphasize that the vocabulary here is English english. American terms are not necessarily the same. Jelly' for instance which Caroline used, I think in the breakfast thread, is 'jam' here, our 'jelly' is, I believe 'Jello' in US, Turnip in N.England, is Swede in S England (and vice-versa) and Rutabaga in US and oddly enough in France.

 

Odd that 'jelly' is used for jam in parts of Scotland. There's a Glasgow folksong 'yu cannie flings pieces oot o' twenty story flats', which refers to the effect of throwing out a 'jilly piece' (jam/jelly sandwich) to the child playing twenty stories below. At one stage it is intercepted and enjoyed by the pilot of a low flying plane.

The term 'cookies' is another American-Scotland link I think.

 

Time to go and try to find some dinner/lunch. No shops here and I omitted to put something out to de-freeze, and I hate the microwave. Egg and chips again perhaps; Surely I could boil some tatties and carrots and find a chop......at least there is plenty of plonk, but plonk with egg and chips....hmmm........

Edited May 17, 2007 by Bondbug

[erialc 2]

Ahh egg, chips and plonk goes well I think how about with some gypsy toast? that eggy fried bread stuff...see how much class it has now and all one needs is some wino to accompany it or if you have cheese what about some welsh rabbit or rarebit?...how does one spell that....I always remember hearing it as rarebit. ahh Delia has one here....good ole Delia!Welsh Rarebit

 

I can't remember the barley kernel pud but I do remember with horror and still shudder at the sight of it Rice Pudding...especially homemade or bread and butter pudding...I know I am weird I guess because I don't know many people who dislike them but ugghh they do make feel quite quesy ofc my kids evil things love both and yeah they love to make blamange hehe but I cheat and tip it out of a packet

 

Thanks for the recipes BondBug I am absolutely starving now! and come the weekend I will try maybe a treacle steamed pud ...if it's really hideous though I'll not take pics...lol or maybe I will

[Bondbug 32]

For yummy dumpling pix, Delia again: http://www.deliaonline.com/search/?qx=dumplings

 

and if they turn out heavy, advice on this link: http://www.deliaonline.com/messageboard/7/31774/thread.html

 

And I couldn't even be bothered with egg and chips - found some cold pork, chutney, half a tomatoo; ice cream and coffee (not together) Even forgot the plonk

Why do I look at all these mouth-watering pictures.

Gotta lose weight while the wife is away. Gotta.

Edited May 17, 2007 by Bondbug

[Bondbug 32]

Just testing GoGo's instructions.

 

 

Yeah! Wow! Dumplings.

"Oh ain't her suet dumplings fine? By Jove I mean to try 'em..." (from old English folksong)

 

As you said it's addictive. I've sat up half the night trying to get this thing sized right. Good job the wife is away!

Edited May 17, 2007 by Bondbug

[fRACTAL 0]

Heh, now my dad is great at these, I'm gonna have to prod him into making one again, then I'll photo it

~Doom

[gogoblender 3,070]

Good God, that's an amazing photo, Bond...lol, yer a pro with the photos!

Tim, does your spotted dick look the same as Bond's?

Wow, this looks a lot like a desert my mom and gramma make, now I have to see if they have it too!

 

 

gogo

[fRACTAL 0]

It looks like Bond's second one, the steamed spotted dick, repleate with raisins and currants..

(only minus the syrup )

~Doom

[gogoblender 3,070]

These deserts actually have a "creme caramele" look to them.

Love that stuff

 

gogo

[myles 2]

Yum yum I must start cooking again, I keep forgetting how much fun this is.

 

*Throw my sacred guides in da bin and get my Snoopy apron out*

[Borg 0]

Bondbug you havent made one in 50 years? you must be almost as old as me *lol*

[fRACTAL 0]

Yum yum I must start cooking again, I keep forgetting how much fun this is.

 

*Throw my sacred guides in da bin and get my Snoopy apron out*

*steals the guides*

~Doom

[Bondbug 32]

Bondbug you havent made one in 50 years? you must be almost as old as me *lol*

 

Will 78 do?