CHRISTMAS COOKERY

Celebrate like Ross and Demelza with these festive recipes from Poldark author Winston Graham’s wife Jean, whose cookbook was inspired by the show

Try roast beef, baked salmon and plum pudding the 18thcentury Cornish way with five pages of delicious recipes from the Poldark cookery book

ROAST BEEF WITH ORANGE SUET PUDDING

Serves 6-8 2kg (4lb 8oz) beef rib Salt and pepper 2-3tbsp beef dripping (from supermarkets) Horseradish sauce

For the suet pastry

125g (4½oz) beef suet 225g (8oz) plain flour 1tsp salt

7tbsp cold water

For the filling

Juice of 4 oranges and rind of 1 orange

300ml (½pt) milk

75g (2¾oz) sugar

100g (3½oz) sponge cake crumbs

2 eggs, well beaten A pinch of nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 220°C/ fan 200°C/gas 7. Season the beef and spread dripping all over it. Roast for 1½ hours, or until done to your liking. Allow 20 minutes for each 450g and baste regularly.

Meanwhile, make the suet pastry. Chop the suet finely with a little flour. Sift the rest of the flour and salt into a bowl and add the suet. Mix to a dough with the water. Roll out and use to line a 1.6ltr pie dish.

For the filling, stew the orange rind in the milk then remove from the heat. Add the sugar, cake crumbs, eggs and nutmeg, then the juice, and pour into the pastry.

When the beef is done, take it out and leave to rest for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 190°C/fan 170°C/gas 5. Bake the pudding for 30 minutes, until the pastry is cooked and the mixture set. Serve warm with the beef and some horseradish sauce.

In the fifth Poldark novel, The Black Moon, roast beef was served with an orange suet pudding.