My daring English puddings, with a coconut theme.
My experience of traditional English puddings – which are not anything like the foods that I think of as puddings, starting with the fact that they’re traditionally steamed or boiled – is limited to the sticky toffee pudding my aunt made for Christmas Eve dinner this year, and the demonstration of Christmas pudding-making that I saw at Spadina House when I was a kid. Appropriately, that demonstration was in July.
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.
This is only my third Daring Baker’s challenge, but there’s no doubt that so far, this is the one that’s required me to step the most beyond what’s familiar to me. Fortunately, although Esther recommended using suet to make the puddings more authentic, it wasn’t a requirement (my semi-vegetarian, health conscious family thanks her), and as it turns out, steaming a pudding isn’t hard. It merely takes some improvisation. Thanks to Audax, my mother’s crockpot immediately suggested itself as an excellent steaming apparatus, combined with a couple of pyrex bowls and a wadded up dishtowel. Getting the bowls out of the crockpot after the puddings were cooked was a scary process, but there were, happily, no disasters.
Since I had not had any idea that one could steam a pie – and certainly I had no idea that it would turn out deliciously – I knew I was going to do at least one version in a pastry crust. I opted for savoury, because we love lentil and vegetable pie with mushroom gravy in this house. Just to be different, though, since I wasn’t going to use suet, I used coconut oil instead of butter – with excellent results. And I had to do a sponge version too, because who doesn’t love cake? The only requirement I had for the sponge version was that it incorporate dulce de leche, which I’ve fallen in love with in a big way ever since a classmate brought some amazing coconut-crusted macaron-type cookies filled with it to our end-of-year potluck. After the coconut-banana bread I’d made the week before, combining the two was as natural as breathing.
I’ve included only my adaptations here, but Esther’s recipes as originally posted are extremely detailed and give lots more variations.
Lentil and Vegetable Pudding with Coconut Oil Pastry (adapted from Esther’s suet-crust pudding recipe and Bryant Terry’s vegan pastry recipe for Jamaican Patties)
250 g all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
175 g room temperature coconut oil
a pinch salt and pepper
about 1/2 cup of milk
Notes: I followed my general pastry-making strategy, minus the rule about having everything as cold as possible, and the results were delicious and the pastry was relatively easy to roll.
Filling Ingredients:
2 cups cooked brown or green lentils
2-3 cups chopped vegetables (I used a mix of sliced mushrooms, shredded cabbage, and some leftover garlic-mashed potatoes)
1 onion, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp harissa
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
Notes: The measurements for the pie filling are very approximate.
Prepare your steaming apparatus and butter the inside of a large bowl. I used my mom’s big crockpot and a pyrex bowl that sort of hung on the lip of the crockpot – it was the only possible bowl, but I think this probably works better if you can fit the pudding bowl right into the steamer.
For the pastry:
Whisk the flour, salt, pepper, and baking powder together. Cut in the coconut oil with a pastry cutter or your hands (although note that coconut oil will stick to your hands far more than butter will). Add in the milk, a tablespoon at a time, until the pastry comes together in a smooth, elastic dough. Set aside – but do not refrigerate!
For the filling:
Heat the oil in a large sautee pan on medium heat. Pour in the onions and sautee for about 10 minutes, until they are nicely caramelized. Remove from heat and mix in the lentils, vegetables, and seasonings until everything is thoroughly combined.
To assemble and steam the pudding:
When ready to use, divide the pastry into two. Roll out one piece and use it to line the pudding bowl. Spoon in the filling and then top with remaining pastry. Cover the bowl tightly with foil or a tight-fitting lid, and then fit it into the steaming apparatus. Steam for about 5 hours; the pastry crust should be nicely browned at this point.
Remove the bowl from the steamer and let rest for 10 minutes or so, then turn it out onto a plate. Serve with mushroom gravy.
Mushroom Gravy
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 sliced onion
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup red wine
1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 – 2 Tbsp flour
salt and pepper
dash of Worcestershire sauce
Heat the olive oil in a large pan on medium heat, then add the onions. Sautee for a few minutes, then pour in the mushrooms. Sautee for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the mushrooms are cooked.
Pour in the red wine. When the wine is mostly evaporated, add the stock; whisk in the flour. Continue to heat until the gravy is thick and bubbling hot.
Season to taste with salt, pepper, and a bit of Worcestershire sauce.
Coconut-Banana Pudding with Dulce de Leche (adapted from Esther’s sponge pudding recipe and Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid’s coconut banana bread)
100 g all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
100 g coarse semolina flour
75 g white sugar
75 g softened butter
1 large egg
1 pureed banana
75 g dried shredded unsweetened coconut
6 Tbsp coconut milk
About 6 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk
Notes: The coarse semolina replaced the breadcrumbs in the original recipe, because I had it on hand, and I think it worked really well, but definitely, especially combined with the coconut, meant the pudding had a lot of texture although it was very moist. I don’t know how traditional that is; I just know that I thought it was good. My measurements for the shredded coconut and the sweetened condensed milk are guesstimates; I had about half a can of the condensed milk in the fridge and used all of it, and I just threw in a big handful of the coconut. I didn’t bother, but you could serve this with extra dulce de leche and it would, I’m sure, be delicious.
Prepare your steaming apparatus. Butter a 950 mL bowl which will fit in your steamer.
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder, then add the semolina and sugar and softened butter. Cream everything together.
In another bowl – or in a food processor, if you’re lazy like me – mix together the coconut milk, egg, and pureed banana. Stir this mixture into the creamed butter and dry ingredients to make a soft batter. Stir in the shredded coconut.
Pour the sweetened condensed milk into the bottom of the prepared pudding bowl, then spoon the batter on top. Cover the bowl tightly with tinfoil or a tight-fitting lid and place in the steamer. Steam for about 5 hours, then remove the pudding. Allow to rest for 10 minutes or so, then turn it out onto a plate.
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