April 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Traditional British Pudding

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.

And thus the very first thing I did was to check in the nearest supermarket whether they had any suet. You see, suet is widely used in the south-east spanish's kitchens, but here, in the north, we rarely used it. But I was lucky, as they had 2 sticks of it, 300g each.
Next I had to decide if I was going to make a savory or a sweet pudding. Well, my father can't eat too much sweets and my mother prefers savory dishes, so it was an easy choice. Therefore, I decided on the savory pudding, filled with carrots, potatoes and beef. To make it nicer I added some onion and white wine sauce to the filling.
Then I went to search for an alternative to the steamer (I don't own one and I don't intend to), which was resolved quickly by using the pressure cooker with a steamer stand. And I made 2 handles for the pudding bowl with some string.

When the day I had set to make the pudding came, my main worry was to undercook the pudding, so I decided to leave it for 2 and half hours steaming (I made enough for 2 medium-sized puddings), as the host had said that is very difficult to overcook it. Also, at the last moment I decided to add a dash of pimentón (I think that in the english-speaking countries it's called spanish paprika, but I'm not sure) to the crust instead of pepper, that's why the uncooked crust has a yellowish color.

The recipe:

Ingredients for the crust:        

250g self-raising flour (I combined all-purpose flour with baking powder)
175g shredded suet
A pinch of salt
2 dashes of pimentón
Water (I don't know the exact amount that I used)

Ingredients for the filling:        

2 small carrots
1 large potato
200g beef, chopped

I'm sorry but I can't post the ingredients nor the method for making the sauce because I don't use fixed amounts, it a family recipe so we simply add the ingredients and cook it as we please, so it changes from one time to another.

Method:

1. Mix the flour and suet together.
2. Season the flour and suet mixture with salt and pimentón.
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. Don't over handle the pastry or it will be too hard.
4. Reserve a quarter for the lid and roll out the rest and line a well-greased bowl.
5. Add the filling and 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.
6. 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.
7. Steam for up to 5 hours (mine was steamed for 2 and half hours); you may need to add more boiling water halfway through or possibly more often. It's hard to over steam a pudding so you can leave it bubbling away until you are ready.
8. Take the pudding out of the steamer and serve it while still warm.

The pudding was exactly what you could expect from the British kitchen; it's trully one of the best exponents of the English food. The results that you get with such a simple but savory ingredients are really incredible. And I must say that I believe that the steaming process plays an important part in obtaining it's final cualities.