Spotted Dick

Ingredients

• 2 cupsself-rising flour
• salt
• 1 cupsuet, shredded beef or vegetarian suet; no suet? freeze a block of butter and grate it coarsely — same weight, same job
• 1 cupcurrants
• 1/3 cupsuperfine sugar
• 1lemon, zest only
• 1orange, zest only
• 2/3 cupmilk, plus a little extra if needed
• custard, to serve

Method

1. 1

   Tip the flour and salt into a large bowl, then rub in the suet with your fingertips. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs before anything else goes near it.

2. 2

   Stir the currants, sugar and both zests through the dry mixture. Do it now while everything is dry — currants clump the moment liquid appears.

3. 3

   Work in the milk until the dough holds together firmly but still feels moist. Add a splash more only if dry patches refuse to come in.

4. 4

   Roll the dough into a fat cylinder about 20 cm long. Sit it on parchment paper, wrap it loosely so it has room to swell, and twist the ends shut like a cracker.

5. 5

   Set a steamer over a pan of boiling water and steam the pudding for an hour and a half. Top the pan up with boiling water whenever it drops; it must never run dry.

6. 6

   Lift it out and let it settle for a few minutes before unwrapping. Serve in thick slices with warm custard.