Clootie Dumpling, Another very old family recipe

[Catriona]

CLOOTIE DUMPLING

So named because they were once cooked in a muslin cloth (hence cloot). Nowadays a pudding bowl would be OK.


Please note that all these measurements are Imperial measure

3 oz self-raising flour
3 oz white bread crumbs
4 oz suet (shredded)
4 oz caster sugar
2 oz raisins
2 oz currants
2 oz sultanas
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 tablespoon marmalade
1 egg beaten into quarter pint of milk

Mix all ingredients into large bowl to form dough. Spoon into a greased 2 pt basin. Put greaseproof paper on top of bowl, making sure there is clearance from dough mixture. Steam (water two thirds of way up basin) in a covered pan for 3 hours. Make sure you check that the saucepan doesn't dry out. Serve hot with custard, or whisky sauce or cream.

In our family, leftovers were heated up in a frying pan in a little butter. Sprinkled with icing sugar.

[RavenWing]

Suet, I have seen this word in a few recipes, but I have no idea what it is.

[Herrerano]

Suet is the clean white beef fat, usually found around the kidneys. Normally you have to ask your meat cutter to save it for you a few days in advance.

Leo

[RavenWing]

Ah, I see now. I think I saw it in mincemeat pie, which would explain a lot there too. Thanks Leo!

[Aon_Daonna]

just to add: Clootie Dumplin's are "lecker" !!! *mjam*

[RavenWing]

They sound good. *drool*

[free2Bme]

This sounds like my Grandma Taylor's recipe for Bread Pudding! Only she used lard and not suet in her recipe...yum yum good stuff!

[Shadows]

Suet can also be had by boiling down soup bones with some meat still on them, you know make a good broth then cool... the clean white fat that hardens on top is rendered suet and the best kind for baking.

[Catriona]

Shadows
Thanks for the information. I've never heard of recovering suet by that method - I was always told it was the fat from round the kidneys of beef cattle. I would think the 'suet' made by your method would still taste a little 'meaty'..... The suet shreds that we buy commercially in the UK has literally no smell or meat taste.

[Shadows]

If you scrape off the botom most layer that still holds some meat particles and discard it you have no meat flavor nor smell left in the remaining suet. It is pure white almost Crisco like in color and smell, but is a hard lump that can be cut or remelted. It is my preference to use ,but you are right in what you say also about the kidney fat.

[Herrerano]

Nice discussion on suet. When I want it, I go into a little sausage store not far from here and tell the man that I want some and I will be back in two or three days. They normaly use it themselves and never have any on hand to sell. Other fat just won't work as well because of the taste and color.

Just thought y'all would like to know that in case you need to make a yorkshire pudding or something down here some time.

Leo

[Shadows]

Must be nice to still have an old fashioned butcher in the neighborhood!!
Here in the states they are getting as rare as hen's teeth!! Everything comes pre-packaged now and if you want something out of the ordinary it costs you "mucho peso" ... I have tried to learn some of the old secrets of cooking and making due with what is at hand to defray the cost and make sure I am getting the best.

Viva la habenero and all that is hot and good!
(kinda like the ladies on this forum! )

[Herrerano]

Ahh yes, the habañero (the version that grows all over the place down here are the caribean variety called scotch bonnets). Here they normaly are red in color instead of the orange colored ones I have seen up there. Every region has it's own name for particular peppers and these are called aji chombo which I am unable to translate literally because someone would start flaming me over the political incorrectness of the word I would have to use. (That sort of victim type sensitivity is not nearly so rampant down here as it is in the politically correct U.S., gee whiz, men still open doors for ladies down here and stuff like that. And even more amazing, men look at women on the streets etc, and whistle and things like that and the women appreciate it and often do the shy smile.)

Not only are there neighboorhood butchers, there are also bakeries that still use mud ovens.

This, of course, is way off topic, but a friend of mine has a website with thousands of photos of places all over ¨Panama. There are some pictures of a bakery a short distance from the plant where I work.

First go here
http://www.chagres.com/

Then scroll down to photo album 124 and click on that. There are a lot of pictures of places around La Arena and Chitré starting in Photo Album 120 thru 125, including a photo of one of the most internationaly known barbecuers (album 121)

Leo, who has trouble staying on topic

[Shadows]

QUOTE (Herrerano @ Jul 14 2003, 05:01 PM)

Ahh yes, the habañero  (the version that grows all over the place down here are the caribean variety called scotch bonnets).  Here they normaly are red in color instead of the orange colored ones I have seen up there. ...

I grow both the yellow and red ... the red makes a nice variation of chipotles... but this belongs some where else LOL!!!

As for the Ladies... I appriciate them one and all... only wish the liberation was only political and not sensual ( sexual )...thay make life worth living!!!

[Aon_Daonna]

*blush* shadows, I somehow thought you were female
The interest in cooking and such things seem to be so restricted to females sometimes (although my brother is a really good cook)

here in sunny cardenden we have 2 butchers, and in my hometown of Ratingen, Germany we have a real lot, never counted them and i never will i fear, but it's at leat 4 in the centre alone .. =)

being PC might be all well but I miss certain things in it. Where is the fun when somebody whistles after you and you don't wink and smile shyly??
Goodness, the good old jokes, can't they be told anymore?


I think nobody has as much experience in being correct to victims as Germans... we are still paying, even people being as young as me (and younger than me.) *sighs*