Feeds 4
Ingredients:-
- 200g/7oz self-raising flour
- ground black pepper
- 90g/3¼oz shredded beef suet
- cold water
- 400g/14oz back bacon rashers
- 150g/5½oz chopped onions
- 1 tsp chopped fresh sage
- 1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
- 100g/3½oz diced potatoes
Method:-
- First, make your suet pastry: sift the flour into a mixing bowl and grind in some black pepper, then add the suet and mix together using a knife. Add cold water, drip by drip, mixing all the time to make a nice, gluey dough. Now use your hands to work it, binding it together into a smooth elastic dough.
- Lightly flour a surface and roll the pastry out into a long, even rectangle about 25cm/10in wide, and as long as you can manage without the pastry getting too thin.
- Leaving 2.5cm/1in clear all around the pastry, spread the bacon rashers over it and cover this with the onions, sage and parsley. Season with pepper (no salt) and spread the diced potato slices along the middle.
- Roll the whole thing up, sealing the edges by pressing them together.
- Wrap the badger in baking paper to seal it from the muslin.
- Wrap this tightly in muslin or a clean tea towel, tightly tying the ends with string to keep its shape and boil gently in a large pan of water, or steam in a large steamer, for three hours.
- Unwrap it and carve into large slabs. Serve with a salad and English mustard.
