Picked up Lobscouse and Spotted Dick from the library, and naturally had to do a fairly epic meal. I went primarily for the unfamiliar foods, so, my menu was:
Alamode Beef
Bashed Neeps
Leeks (ok, I cheated here to get another vegetable in)
Sea-Pie
Spotted Dog with Custard Sauce
And it was fun! The Alamode Beef was amazing, and larding is much faster and more satisfying than I’d expected. For $2.99 beef (and in San Francisco, at that) it was exceedingly tender and delicious. Bacon and mushrooms never hurt. I forgot to season the bacon before it went into the beef, so I ended up just seasoning the beef with the nutmeg/clove/mace/cider vinegar which was intended for the bacon, but I still ended up with a nice, understated nutmeggy flavor that I’d definitely do again.
I’m always a tuber fan, so Bashed Neeps weren’t too unfamiliar, but the Balmagowry went gave them a nice, if very slight, sour taste that made them go down quite nicely. The leeks I just sautéed, but were also tasty.
Sea-Pie - well, not such a huge success. To begin with, I have to fess up that I used a springform pan instead of making it free-standing - I forgot to allow for drying time, and I was in a hurry. Still, the crust was both incredibly fun to make (lardy/buttery enough that I didn’t need to flour the board I kneaded on, and squishy and warm between the fingers) and fairly tasty where it got cooked. The main problem was that the inner crust didn’t get cooked at all - it ended up about the consistency of melted cheese, but with a less-than-stellar floury taste. The outer and bottom crusts had maybe a quarter inch of crisp, baked texture, fading to sort of moist dough on the inside. The forcemeat (chicken, bacon, and mushrooms) was VERY good, and the filling was ok, although a little overdone by the time the crust was browned. So, sort of mediocre - I may make more forcemeat for something, since it was fun and relatively easy, but I’m not so sure about more multi-deck pies. I would like to do a proper raised pie, but I’d skip the inner crust, and make the outer crust thinner, if possible, to avoid so much gooing of the the inside.
As for Spotted Dog - I had a hell of a time finding suet - found a couple places that would special-order it, but not in time. The one place that carried it regularly was out because their supplier was busy doing turkeys for thanksgiving. I ended up getting a butcher to save some miscellaneous beef fat for me, and picking out the least-bloody bits I could. I also don’t think I froze it long enough before grating it, because a fair amount ended up smeared all over my food processor (it looked deceptively like lox schmear, in fact), but I eventually made the damned thing. Unfortunately, my pot boiled dry, my pudding cloth charred horribly (thank god for the dollar store) and the bottom crust of the pudding got a little burnt. Fortunately, the consistency was such that the burnt bits pretty much just flaked off, and I ended up with a slightly smaller, but undeniably delicious pudding! Especially with custard sauce! It was much drier than I expected, never having had a suet pudding before, but that just made it match the sauce better. I’ve also never had cooked currants before - they were much tarter than I’d expected, which was nice - I was a little afraid they’d end up too sweet, like baked raisins can be. I’m definitely doing another one - I put in an order for some proper suet, and I think Thanksgiving may call for a Jam Roly-Poly.
Has anyone else tried out the book? I’d especially like to hear if anyone has tried raised pies, but generally speaking, I think old-school cookery is fascinating, and I’d love to hear tales. All in all, I call mine a success. Now I just need to rig up a spit to try out some of the other recipes…
