STEAMED STEAK PUDDING

Puddings involving meat are not as frightening as they sound. In Nana’s day, they were just a stew or casserole with a topping of some sort. And the reason they took hours to cook was that coal ranges always produced some heat and these could be placed at the back of the stove to simmer away on a low heat until dinner. I found this recipe for Steamed Steak Pudding in my mother’s recipe notebook written by my grandmother Olive Peterson. When I cooked this, I really liked the bread/egg/ milk topping, which absorbs so much flavour from the meat, but it was a bit runny so I’ve added

an extra step to roll the meat in seasoned flour beforehand to help thicken it up a bit.

500g stewing steak

(I used chuck)

Seasoned flour

1 large tomato, skinned

and chopped

1 onion, sliced

Salt and pepper

1 tbsp malt vinegar

1 cup water

2 slices stale white bread

soaked in ½ cup milk

1 egg beaten

1 Cut the meat into small pieces and roll in seasoned flour to cover well. (I do this by putting flour, salt and pepper in a plastic bag, into which I put the steak pieces and shake it around until they are covered.) 2 Put the meat into a greased pudding basin and add the tomato, onion, salt and pepper.

3 Pour the vinegar and water over the meat.

4 Squeeze the bread to remove most of the milk, break into small pieces and place in a bowl, then add the beaten egg. Mix together to form a sort of dough.

5 Press the bread mix over the top of the meat and cover your basin with a lid or baking paper. (Make the circle of paper 10cm larger than the basin and then you can tie it down around the top of the basin with string). Place into a saucepan of boiling water so that it reaches half way up the basin. Put the lid on and simmer for 2½ hours.