Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker Read Online Free PDF

the tongue is cooked rather than before cooking. Mix the meats together. Taste and see if the mixture needs any more seasoning. Keep the meat separate from the gravy and set both aside.
    Prepare your pudding basin by greasing and flouring it well so it is ready for the pastry. I use a 1.2-litre lidded plastic basin as it saves getting creative with tin foil. Make the suet pastry by mixing the suet and the flour together in a large bowl. Season well. I sometimes add a pinch of mustard powder too. Add up to 150ml of the water as you bring the pastry together. It should be firm, but slightly sticky. If it is too dry, add the remaining water. Keep the pastry rough with lumps of suet visible.
    Don’t knead the dough, but roll out two-thirds of it on a floured surface until it is 5mm thick. Lift this carefully over the pudding basin and allow it to flop into it. Don’t push it down, but leave about 2cm hanging over the edge of the basin. Patch any holes or cracks carefully. Roll the remaining pastry out in a circle and leave aside.
    Start filling the pudding by adding a layer of the meat about 5cm deep, then a layer of the gravy about 2cm deep. Repeat until the basin is almost full and then pour any of the remaining gravy over the top.
    Wet the edges of the suet pastry with a little water and put the lid on top, crimping the edges together with your finger and thumb to seal it. Trim off the excess and place the lid on the bowl well. There should be enough of a gap in the basin to allow the pudding room to expand.
    Set the basin into the slow cooker and pour boiling water into the crock until it comes about half way up the sides. Put the lid on the slow cooker and steam the pudding on high for 4 hours.
    Carefully lift the pudding out and turn it out on a serving plate. It will slide out easily and sit up proudly for about 30 seconds before the suet pastry slumps down and cracks open, exposing a river of rich gravy. This is the sign of a seriously successful steamed pudding.
    Serve with heaps of steamed Savoy cabbage on the side.

RAG PUDDING
    Closely related to those clootie and apple dumplings (see here ) we used to eat for Halloween, this is the Lancastrian version, made with meat instead of fruit. Brought into my life by my brother Mister North’s connection with the county he lived in for most of a decade, it’s a brilliant way to make the leftovers of the Perfect Mince here go a long way. Rolled into a long shape, this dish is what happens when you combine a sausage roll with a suet dumpling and put it in its Sunday best.
    This is a simple recipe to make, but it’s a good idea to prepare the slow cooker and cloth in advance as suet pastry is quite fragile and needs to handled carefully.
    SERVES 4 GENEROUSLY
    100g suet
    100g self-raising flour
    75ml cold water
    150g cooked beef mince (see here )
    salt and pepper
    Put a small dish or ramekins in the slow-cooker crock. I used three of the sort you get from posh ready-made desserts. Soak a cloth in warm water, then wring out the excess. Lay it out flat. Liberally flour the whole cloth, which will prevent the pudding from sticking. Then flour it again to be sure.
    Put the suet, flour and salt and pepper in a large bowl, and add the water. Bring it all together with your hands and combine. It will feel slightly rough, but do not knead the dough.
    Turn it out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangle until about 5mm thick. Put the mince in the middle, making sure you leave a little space at the ends. Roll up the pastry as tightly as you can to make a suet sausage and set onto the floured cloth.
    Roll the cloth up tightly to hold the shape, tie two lengths of string round the body of it and secure each end with string. It will look like a big Christmas cracker. Fold the ends of the cloth over the top and place the whole pudding parcel on top of your ramekins. It’s fine if the pudding bends a bit at the ends to get it in there. Pour boiling water into the slow cooker