Gordo enjoys a twist on the Northern chippy classic
The world’s greatest pudding was eaten by Gordo, aged seven, at Granny Garner’s bungalow in Heaton Moor, Stockport. A steamed pudding, not savoury, but sweet.
She lined a couple of large pudding basins with her stupendously light and fluffy suet pastry and then filled both with two tins of canned strawberries, all mush, slush, hyper-sweet and decadent. Home made custard. That and the latest adventures of the Famous Five was bliss on a rainy Mancunian Sunday afternoon.
The second best was made by me a few years ago from the Hairy Bikers pie book but using shin beef and lamb’s kidneys with Heston Blumenthal’s beef stock recipe. It was a right load of messing about but won me the best pie at the restaurant critics annual cook off. The national critics, all southerners, had little wees and whimpered going on “but it wasn’t a pie!”
Yeah, go fuck yourselves losers.
The third best was on the new, rather well thought out short menu at Hawksmoor, Manchester.
You’ll fall in love with Hawksmoor’s suet pastry
I had it a couple of days ago. It was near-glorious. Mushy peas and stupendous beef fat chips. That glass of Rioja reserva didn’t do me any harm either. If you have never had a properly cooked suet pudding, you’ll be taken by surprise at how light and fluffy this pastry can be.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the ubiquitous Holland’s puddings with extra gravy, but you’ll fall in love with Hawksmoor’s suet pastry, stuffed full of slow braised short rib and root vegetables, bubbled up forever in red wine and somerset cider brandy.
A thick gravy, very slightly sweet, is poured over the pudding, which is sitting in its shallow soup bowl showing off.
This is a dish that Hawksmoor have shown their genius for, bringing dishes from the past with massive appeal and not messing them about.
This is a star. More gravy please, Chef.
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