Stir Up Sunday and a Great British Christmas pudding

Last Sunday, November 23^rd, was Stir Up Sunday. The final Sunday before the Advent commences on the first Sunday of December. Stir Up Sunday is traditionally the day to make and steam your Christmas Puddings. The Book of Common prayer of Church of England has a prayer allotted to this day:

"Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen".

I must admit that this is a quaint tradition I have only just heard about via ABC 702 Sydney and Christmas is a time of year where tradition and ages old customs bind many. Do I comply with Stir Up Sunday? No I do not. Sorry to disappoint, folks J (plus I found the Prayer on Wikipedia).

When making your own Christmas puddings you need to be mindful of the maturing period to allow flavour and texture to develop. The maturing period is when the sugars in the fruit and the fat, spices and alcohol in the pudding ripen to add depth of flavour and colour. In a warm climate such as Sydney, the Stir Up Sunday date provides an adequate five to six week period to mature your pudding. In colder Northern Hemisphere climates, the maturing period can be up to three months.

When maturing your pudding, room temperature is ideal. In Sydney, I remove the pudding from its damp steaming muslin and leave it on a rack for a day to dry prior to wrapping in fresh muslin and hanging in an internal room which is well ventilated but without direct sunlight to prevent temperature fluctuations. If you get some mould, it is usually yeast growth, is harmless and can be trimmed prior to reheating. Don’t wrap a pudding in plastic cling wrap as it needs to breath and don’t wrap it in foil as the acid in the dried fruit will dissolve the foil leaving a metallic tasting taint. Don’t refrigerate as this defeats the purpose by stalling the maturing process.

My Christmas Pudding recipe is a lighter version of a recipe from Farmhouse Cookery, a Readers Digest book on Great British cookery that I have had for Donkeys years. I have replaced fluoro Glace Cherries fruits, and a percentage of dried grapes with apricots, cranberries, figs and dates. Tinker to add your preferred fruits too. Mixed spice is easily prepared in a grinder, I use a recipe from Christine Mansfield’s Spice book. Its aromatic flavour is superior to a shop bought mixed spice because the oils are still active and have not staled. This recipe uses 225g suet, as a vegetarian option substitute it for 150g coarsely grated butter.

A Great British Christmas Pudding ( makes 3 X 700g puddings)

Day One: 225g currants, 300g sultanas, 50g dried cranberries, diced 100g dried apricots, 200g dried figs, 200g dates, 1 apple and carrot (coarsely grated), finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange. Mix altogether in a bowl with approx 300ml dark stout/ Guinness ( approx ½ pint). Cover and leave this to soak overnight.

Day Two: Line three basins with damp muslin, large enough to fold over the top and cover the puddings, allowing them room to expand. (Wash under the tap, the muslin to remove any loose fibres).

225g Self raising flour, 225g Suet, 225g fresh white breadcrumbs, 225g soft dark brown sugar, 1 level teaspoon salt, 4 level teaspoons mixed spice. Stir these dry ingredients together.

Beat together 6 eggs. Combine with the fruit and dry ingredients, stirring till thoroughly mixed. Your mix should be a soft dropping consistency. Add extra stout if needed. Drink what’s left.

Divide between the three bowls and close the muslin over the top. Wrap the bowls well with glad wrap. Place in a steamer and simmer for seven hours. (You can reduce the time using a pressure cooker but the raising will be hindered by the increased pressure, I have an old Fowlers Vacola urn that holds multiple basins).

Day Three: After steaming remove puddings from steamer and allow them to cool in the basin. Then prepare for maturing as in the introduction.

When serving:  Steam the pudding for a minimum of two hours. A tip for flaming brandy or rum when serving: heat the alcohol in a small pan or ladle before pouring over your hot pudding and ignite with a match.

Bon Appetite! 

Salt- friend or foe?

We season food with salt multiple times when we are cooking a meal but as health conscious people can we do without it? To answer this question, we need to understand the role of salt when cooking.

As a flavouring

Salt asensuates flavour by enhancing foods it is added to during the cooking and serving stages. In a pot of boiled vegetables, to season the sauce of a casserole, salt plays a vital role. Our pallet recognises the multiple components of taste. When these components are balanced we enjoy the flavour of our food. The components of taste are sweet, bitter, sour, salty and unami. Therefore the addition of salt enhances the food that we eat to please our pallets. Does that mean all our food must be highly seasoned? No, processed food is formulated to appease these taste components and if we eat a large component of processed food your pallet will be attuned to a salty diet. Some professional chefs spark mini controversies by refusing to allow salt on their diner’s table because the Chef is the ruler of  their kingdom and they  have decreed that there is sufficient seasoning in a dish when it is served. If you want to reduce the salt quota of your food intact, does this mean you are destined to eat bland food? No all foods have natural flavouring enhancers- tomatoes contain naturally occurring MSG. Foods can be enhanced by roasting/ toasting ( think coffee, nuts), herbs & spices can provide a flaovoursome alternative. Vegetarians beware in Thai cookery seasoning is in the form of fish sauce and palm sugar in curries to balance a dish to our pallet.

The Mallard effect

Salt in the cooking process assists with the browning and crisping of food, again ultimately bringing flavour to a dish. Salt raises the boiling point of water by absorbing available water which is why if you are ever marooned on a desert island you will be desperate for fresh water to prevent dehydration.

If you season meat before grilling or roasting it, the available water evaporates faster causing the surface to brown faster and again give fuller flavour. This doesn’t happen magically you need enough airflow to sustain the browning process which is why if you overload a pan when browning meat for a casserole, the meat will stew in its own juices and be tough instead of crisp and brown. Likewise if roasting meat or vegetables, trays with a low side that allow air flow will result in crisper browner food.

Some people prefer not to season their meat prior to cooking for fear that the salt will draw out moisture leaving a dry piece of meat. The moisture lost is so negligible and is counteracted by allowing meat to rest for the juices to settle for at least 5 minutes if a small piece or longer if a joint of meat.

Liquid extraction

My brilliant old mum is not a good cook by a long shot, but one dish she taught me to make and I still make today is pickled red cabbage. Food preservation is effective when moisture is extracted from food and therefore cannot be used by microbes to make us ill. When pickling vegetables and meats, salt is used to draw out moisture from the vegetables, emptying  the cells of their moisture, which is then replaced by vinegar making pickling an effective way of preserving. A similar technique is used to extract the bitter flavour of large eggplants/ aubergines.

In both these examples, the salt is rinsed away and the food dried before progressing to the next stage of processing, whether pickling in malt vinegar or cooking.

Denaturing of protein

Salt in sweet dishes, who’d have thought! Sydney has been gripped in the salted caramel craze for a couple of years. In baking and desert preparation, salt has a very important role to play. When making meringue or the Aussie Pavlova, you whisk egg whites to aerate the mixture. Egg white is a tight bundle of protein strands that don’t want to be separated and split. They are partying together. To be the albumen party pooper, you add a pinch of salt to assist the whisking stage and achieve better aeration.

This chemical trick can work effectively to extend the coating power of egg wash if you are brushing the tops of pies or pastries or when crumbing food to extend the glue that holds crumb coatings to fish and other pané foods.

Salt has many uses and comes in many guises: table, cooking, sea salt, pink. It enhances flavour and helps us to create much conversation worthy dishes. It deserves to be used and not cast aside as an enemy. If you have been told to reduce your salt intake for health reasons, consider where is it hidden or where can I substitute for a healthier options thus reducing your overall intake but still allowing you to enjoy its flavour.