Leek and bacon suet pudding

The dark, cold and wet wintry weather means comfort food comes top of the list and there's nothing better than a leek and bacon suet pudding. It's a north country dish and I hadn't heard of it until fairly recently when Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall featured it in his cookery column in a weekend magazine. Now its a must in this house every winter.
I have adapted the recipe as there are only the two of us and Hugh suggests serving his recipe as a side dish. We eat ours as a main course with lots of lovely green veg.

It's quite an adaptable recipe too ...... the original has unsmoked bacon in it but what's the point of unsmoked bacon? Maybe it's just me but as I don't eat a lot of meat but want flavour I like smoked bacon. It also calls for double cream but single cream seems to work just as well.
Usually I'll just make the one pudding but on this occasion as you'll see from the photo's I made two small ones.

I was prompted to make it the other day as there was some cream left over after we'd had friends for supper, some leeks festering in the fridge and some smoked bacon in the freezer and of course I always have a packet of suet in the cupboard.

Leek and bacon suet pudding

Serves 2

100g self-raising flour

50g shredded suet

1tsp English mustard powder

70ml cold water (approx)

Salt and pepper

25g butter plus more for greasing

4 slices smoked bacon chopped 

3 leeks trimmed, washed and chopped

50ml single cream

500L pudding basin or two 250L pudding basins

Mix the flour, suet, mustard and a pinch of salt and pepper. Combine with just enough water to make a stiffish dough. 

Melt the the butter in a saucepan and fry the bacon for a couple of minutes, then add the leeks and saute until soft. Approx 10 minutes.

Remove from the heat and stir in the cream.

You can either make two individual puddings or one larger one.

If making two, divide the dough in half.

Roll out the dough into a large circle (s)  Cut a quarter out of the circle(s)

Butter a half litre or two quarter litre pudding basins. Line by dropping the larger piece of pastry in them, drawing together the cut sides to make a firm join. Fill with the leek and bacon mixture.

Roll out the remaining quarter of pastry into a circle and lay on top. Press together the edges of the pastry lid and casing to seal. Put a double layer of buttered, pleated foil over the top and tie with string. Either place in a steamer filled with water or on an up turned plate or tart tin in a large pan. Fill with water to come a little above halfway up the basin (s), cover the pot and leave simmering for an hour. Check the water from time to time and top up if necessary.

Once cooked, remove the foil, run a knife around the edge of the pudding and serve with lots of lovely green veg.

Apologies for the aenimic photo but for some reason this is the only one I seemed to have taken of the cooked pudding!