onion | Oma

So what’s in the pot? Can you guess?

This is a recipe very local… It’s called Bedfordshire Clangers.

Here they are cooking…………

Two little beauties boiling in their muslin parcels.

Every 40 minutes I have to top up the water, so I set the alarm so I don’t forget. Don’t want the puddings to go dry.

After 2 hours boiling, I take them out of the pan, using the string rope so I don’t burn my fingers and set them aside to cool a bit.

Where the string meets in the middle, the pudding will divide naturally. So I will have four puddings all together or two for greedy people. Traditionally there would be meat at one end and jam at the other but I have only meat and onion in mine today. The idea was that you started up one end with the meat, gravy added and then you worked your way down to the jam end which you would eat with custard.

I served mine with mashed swede this time. My son and I love mashed swede with butter in.

It’s advisable to open the dumpling up as soon as possible to let the steam out so it can cool down a bit. We like to pour HP sauce over it. American equivalent would be steak sauce but it’s not the same. HP sauce is available in Fresh Market.

After all that cooking and eating, it’s time for a mug of tea to wash it all down and maybe a snooze.

This is a recipe from Oma’s Kitchen.

The main ingredients are as follows:

1 lb of self raising flour

8 ozs of suet

cold water to make the dough

a pinch of salt

one onion, chopped

a packet of lardons, added to the onion

some fresh herbs to taste

Method:

Make up the dough by adding the suet to the flour in a large bowl. Add the water until the dough is pliable (you can roll it out)

Roll out four circles.

Cook the onions and add the lardons.

Put herbs in with the ingredients, either in the meat or in the pastry.

Put the mixture in the centre of the circle and close the dumpling up.

Roll it into the muslin square.

Hint: If you flour the muslin square first, it will seal the dumpling as soon as you lower it into the boiling water.

When you have the dumplings tied up, leave one end of string dangling so you can grab it later on and lower the dumplings into the water.

Get it back to boiling and put the lid on, half cock.

Keep the water topped up and the pot boiling for two hours.

Good luck if you want to try it.

It’s not for the squeamish and it is very high in cholesterol BUT

it is very delicious!

Oma

This dish is one of my favourites and will serve four hungry people.

For the ingredients you will need:

4 medium sized potatoes, peeled, washed and sliced (not too thickly sliced).

2 medium sized onions

8 ozs of mature Cheddar Cheese

salt and pepper (you won’t need much salt because there is plenty in the cheese). Just sprinkle a little over the potato layer.

1 pint of full fat milk (I never use anything that says ‘light’ on it)

2 dessert spoons full of Bird’s Custard Powder (available from English stores in America. I go to World Market when I am there).

Method:

Butter an oval shaped dish generously.

Layer the potatoes in an oval shaped dish with the sliced onions and cheese. It is better to slice the onions and the cheese thinly. I start with potatoes, then onions, then cheese, then potatoes again, onions and cheese. That does it.

Keep back some of the cheese, e.g. 2 ozs, for grating and putting on the top.

Make up the custard powder as explained on the side of the box. If you can’t get Birds Custard Powder, you could use cornflour but then it will be white, not yellow. I like yellow. It looks more authentic. It also tastes delicious. Whatever you do, DON’T add any sugar. This is a savoury dish. Most of the time custard is used for pouring over cherry pies or such like. This is different.