Tag: Summer food

#173 Summer Pudding

The quintessential English pudding for, er, summertime. The summer pudding is one of my favourite desserts; I’d never made one before, but had eaten many. It is my favourite because it contains a massive load of summer berries, in particular, raspberries. For those of you that don’t know, a summer pudding contains lightly stewed summer berries encased in slightly stale bread. The ‘soggy’ bread seems to put many people off, but it doesn’t even seem like bread. Trust me. Apparently, the summer pudding arose in care homes of yore because many invalids couldn’t stomach the rich and heavy pastry or suet puddings.

Make this pudding whilst there is a glut of summer berries that are in season and therefore won’t cost a fortune. (The original recipe is for a huge one that serves eight to ten people, but I halved all the ingredients).

Place a pound of summer berries in a bowl with 4 ounces of caster sugar. Grigson says to use blackcurrants, or a mixture of raspberries, redcurrants and blackberries. The truth is, you can use whatever you want – chopped strawberries are a common addition, for example. Stir, cover and leave overnight. Add the fruit and the juices to a saucepan and bring to a boil and simmer for two minutes to lightly cook the fruit. Next, prepare the pudding basin – you’ll need a 2 ½ pint one for this amount of fruit. Cut a circle of slightly stale white bread for the bottom of the bowl, and then cut wide strips for the edges which should overlap as you place them inside the mould to produce a strong wall with no leaks – make sure you remove the crusts!. Once they are all arranged, pour in half the berry mixture, then add a slice of bread, then the rest of the mixture. Cut more bread make a lid and then fold over or trim any surplus bits. Put a plate on top and weight it down with a couple of food cans and place in the fridge overnight. Turn the pudding out onto a plate and serve with plenty of cream. (Grigson suggests making some extra berry sauce to cover any bread that has not become soaked, though you can get around this by dipping te bread in the berry juices before you place them in the pudding basin.)


#173 Summer Pudding – 9.5/10. It is jostling with Sussex Pond Pudding for first place in the pudding stakes for me. What is there not to like about a big load of tart berries and a dollop of cream? Anyone squeamish about the soggy bread really needn’t be – it is an English classic and everyone should try it (if not this one, then the Sussex Pond Pudding!).

#65 Mangoes of the Sun

I need to catch up on the old recipes…

At the weekend Lee came over – I’m glad to see that he’s enthused by the whole Grigson thing – so I made a Green Thai Curry (recipe coming soon) and I wanted a nice healthy pud to go with it. It had been warm and sunny all week, so I went down the tropical route with (#65) Mangoes of the Sun. What this has to do with English Food I do not know. Nevertheless it’s really simple to do and is a really refreshing end to a Thai meal, or indeed any meal. The dessert didn’t stay healthy for long seeing as Grigson says to serve it with shortcake biscuits (recipe coming later today!). Like with tomatoes, leave your mangoes out on a sunny shelf to ripen up – to use an unripe mango would be a disaster!

This makes enough for three: Slice two mangoes down the sides of the large stone, cut the slices in half, peel them, and then slice again but nice and thinly. Cut away any other fleshy bits that are still around the stone. Arrange the slices on a large plate. Next cut three passion fruit in half and scoop out the seeds into a small pan along with 60 ml (about 2 fluid ounces) of water, along with a squeeze of lime juice and half a tablespoon of sugar. Heat the mixture, but don’t let it boil. After a couple of minutes the pulp should be softened and easy to pass through a sieve, leaving just the shiny pips behind. Taste the sieved juice and add extra sugar or lime juice if necessary. Add a few of the black seeds back to the juice and pour over the mangoes. Lastly, cut thin slices of lime and then quarter them so you have little triangles and scatter them over. Hey presto!


FYI: If you are vegetarian, you might be interested to know that mangoes are a source of Omega-3 oils; better than having to eat those crappy flax seeds. Everyday’s a school day!

#65 Mangoes of the Sun: 8/10. Delicious and summery; I could’ve eaten it all to myself. I was tempted to serve cream as well as biscuits with it, but am glad I didn’t. The shortbread soaks up the juice a treat too. Brilliant. Make this whilst it’s still sunny!