Beefsteak Pudding (Pudding de Biftecks — Suet-Crust Beef Pudding)

Ingredients

• kilogramme flour
• grammes beef kidney suet, chopped
• strong pinch fine salt
• about 2 decilitres water
• kilo 500 beef, cut in escalopes
• Salt, pepper and nutmeg, to season the beef
• Water, to moisten

Instructions

1. For the paste, work 1 kilogramme of flour together with 600 grammes of chopped beef kidney suet, a strong pinch of fine salt and about 2 decilitres of water. Keep it very firm.
2. Setting a small part of the paste aside to close the pudding, line a buttered round-bottomed mould or an English pudding bowl.
3. Cut 1 kilo 500 of beef into escalopes as for the Beefsteak-pie, and season them the same way.
4. Fill the lined mould with the escalopes, arranging them in layers, and moisten with water just to cover.
5. Roll out the reserved paste, cover the pudding with it and seal it onto the edges of the vessel.
6. Lay the middle of a buttered cloth over the pudding, turn the vessel over to fasten the cloth behind the projecting rim, and knot it over the top as well.
7. Cook in boiling water, or in the autoclave at 100 degrees — 3 hours if the escalopes came from the fillet, 4 hours if from another part of the beef.
8. At the moment of serving, unwrap the pudding and dish the bowl on a napkin.