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Suet Pudding, Plain
An excellent plain suet pudding may be made by following the instructions already given for making suet dumplings, then boiling the preparation whole instead of dividing it into dumplings. A pudding thus made will be excellent if served with the joint, and with plenty of gravy; or it may be sent to table separately, having had a jar of jam emptied upon it at the last moment. Time to boil the pudding, one hour and a half. Probable cost, 6d. to 8d. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
The recipe is a cross-reference: it assumes you already have the book's suet dumpling mixture in front of you. Everything hangs on how that dough is wrapped and how steadily it boils.
- The dough it refers toA plain Victorian suet dumpling mix is flour, chopped suet at roughly a quarter to a third the weight of the flour, a good pinch of salt and enough cold water to make a firm, slightly tacky dough. Some versions add a teaspoon of baking powder; the book does not specify here, so treat any figure you find as typical rather than authoritative.
- Suet todayFresh beef kidney suet from a butcher must be stripped of membrane and grated or chopped fine. Packet shredded suet, beef or vegetarian, works directly and is what most cooks will have; keep it cold until it meets the water so it stays in distinct flakes.
- Cloth or basinBoiled whole means a floured pudding cloth tied loosely enough to let the dough swell, or a greased basin covered with pleated parchment and foil and stood on a trivet in simmering water. The cloth gives the traditional skin; the basin is easier to manage.
- The hinge: unbroken simmerOnce the pudding goes in, the water must never come off the boil, and top-ups must be boiling water from a kettle. A lull or a splash of cold water makes the suet set heavy and the middle stodgy.
- Time and donenessThe recipe allows an hour and a half; on the stated yield of six or seven that suggests a pudding of roughly a pound of flour, though the book does not say. A skewer should come out clean and the pudding should feel springy rather than dense through the cloth.
- Cost and yieldSixpence to eightpence is pre-decimal British currency, and the low figure is a sign of how thrifty this dish was. It serves six to seven as written.
- Serving both waysWith the joint it is a gravy sponge and should be sliced thick and hot. Sweet, it wants the jam warmed slightly so it runs rather than sitting in a cold lump on the crust.
Boiled suet puddings belong to the long English tradition of the pudding cloth, which by the seventeenth century had freed puddings from animal guts and let any household with a pot make them. The plain version served alongside the joint was a deliberate economy: a filling starch that soaked up gravy and stretched a small piece of meat across a large table. The habit of serving the pudding first, to dull appetites before the meat arrived, is often attributed to Yorkshire practice. The dish's dual identity here, savoury with gravy or sweet under a jar of jam, is characteristic of the period, when one basic dough was expected to do several jobs depending on what the house could spare.