Steamed venison and port suet pudding

Rating: advanced

Steamed venison and port pudding

Serves 6

Ingredients

For the Pastry

170g beef suet

340g self-raising flour

270ml water

13g salt

For the Filling

480g diced venison

130g diced onion

60g diced carrot

60g diced swede

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 sprig of thyme

1 bay leaf

75ml port

250ml beef stock

1 tbsp. olive oil

Preparation Time: 35 minutes

Cooking Time: 5 hours

Method

Peel and dice the onion, carrot and swede, and peel and finely chop the garlic.

Heat the oil in a pan and cook the diced onion, carrot and swede for 2 minutes, then add the garlic and cook for a further 3 minutes before placing them on a plate to cool.

In the same pan, fry the venison until browned all over and remove from the pan.

Add the port, thyme and bay leaf to an empty pan, and boil until the liquid has reduced by half. Then add the beef stock and continue to boil until it has reduced by half again.

Mix the vegetables together with the venison and season well with salt and pepper.

Mix together the flour, suet and salt in a bowl and then add the water, whilst continuing to stir with a spoon until it comes together to form a soft dough.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead it gently until it forms a ball of soft, elastic pastry. Cut off about a quarter of the pastry and set it aside (this is for the lid).

Roll out the remaining pastry into a circle about ½ cm thick.

Grease the inside of a medium sized pudding basin with butter/vegetable oil and put a circle of greaseproof paper the size of its base in the bottom.

Carefully fold the circle of pastry in half and then half again to form a triangle, and place it into the pudding basin with the point of the triangle at the bottom.

Gently unfold the pastry and mould it to fit the basin (you will be left with a large flap of pastry protruding from the basin, simply cut this off with a pair of scissors.

Roll out the pastry (saved earlier for the lid) to form a circle about 5 cm bigger than the top of the pudding basin and a thickness of about ½ cm.

Tip the meat and vegetable mix into the lined pudding basin.

Remove the thyme and bay leaves from the gravy, and pour over the meat and vegetables.

Moisten the rim of the pastry inside the pudding basin with a little water and place the lid on top and seal it together by pinching all the way around the edge.

Using a knife cut off the excess pastry, leaving a 1 cm rim, then fold in the edges.

Place a square of greaseproof paper (larger than the pudding basin) on the top, followed by a square of tin foil. Fold the edges down and tie it securely with a piece of string. Trim excess foil.

Place pudding in the bottom of a baking tray, half fill the tray with water and then cover the whole tray with foil and place in the oven at 160’C for 3 ½ hours.

Carefully remove the bowl from the tray and take off the string, foil and greaseproof from the pudding. Turn out onto a large plate /bowl.

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