Simple traditional Christmas pudding (with leaf lard)

This is adapted from a video by Townsends, who are historical reenactors focused on the early American place and time and have a lot of great traditional recipes. As mentioned on our Cooking/recipes page, since “pasture-raised meat” used to be what everyone ate and knew how to cook, we think our meats often give their best flavor when cooked with old recipes and cooking methods. Of course, we’re not reenactors so we do use modern conveniences whenever we can get away with it!

You will need:

A very large pot with at least one handle

An additional means of boiling water

A clean, cloth kitchen towel without any holes in it

String

A large cooking bowl, a whisk, and a spoon

6 ounces pork leaf lard, frozen

3 eggs

3/4 cup milk

6 ounces AP flour plus plenty of extra

6 ounces dried pitted dates

6 ounces raisins

(optional, but recommended) a handful or two of candied or other dried fruits, such as candied cherries, candied orange peel, candied citron, or whatever you like

a couple pinches of powdered ginger and a couple pinches of nutmeg or about 1/4 nut grated

a few tablespoons brandy (you’re lighting this on fire, not drinking it. Must be 40 proof or higher.)

To make the pudding:

Fill the pot almost to the top with water and start it on high heat to get it boiling.

Dice the leaf lard into pieces ideally less than a quarter inch square, definitely less than a half inch. Make sure it is frozen first, the lard is far easier to work with when frozen. If the kitchen is warm, put the diced lard back in the freezer until you need it.

In the cooking bowl, crack the eggs and whisk them. Add about half the milk and continue whisking. Add the flour a little at a time and continue whisking so there are no lumps. Add the rest of the milk and whisk some more. Switch from whisk to spoon and add all the fruit. Mix very well. Add the spices and stir some more.

Mix in the diced leaf lard. The lard is a key ingredient. As the pudding boils, the lard slowly melts through the flour mixture, leaving small holes to aerate it and greatly improving the texture. You’ll end up with cloudy cooking water that probably has a lot of lard in it, but that’s okay. Whatever fat the pudding needs soak into the flour, and the rest that melts out helps the pudding have a smooth consistency and not turn into a boiled lump of gunk. Use raw, unrendered leaf lard (or suet from beef), not normal back fat or cooking lard. The leaf lard is a neutral flavor and won’t make your pudding taste like pork (though if you wanted to, you could probably include some candied bacon along with the dried fruits.)

Now add a tablespoon or two of flour at a time and stir it in very well. Keep adding flour and stirring it in completely until the mixture is very, very difficult to stir and all the flour is incorporated with no lumps.

Wet the cloth kitchen towel and lay out on a flat surface. Traditional recipes call for boiling the cloth, but wetting it seems to work fine. Sprinkle a good coating of flour over a large circular area in the center of the towel. This is to keep the pudding from sticking too badly.

Spoon the pudding mix onto the flour on the wet kitchen towel. The mix should be very, very thick and difficult to get out of the bowl.

Tie up the towel into a pouch with the pudding mix inside. Make sure (i) there are no gaps, (ii) the string is strong (use two just to be safe) and very tight, (iii) there is an inch or so of extra space inside the pouch for the pudding to expand. Leave a long tail on the string you use to tie up the pudding pouch.

When the water is at a rolling boil, put the pudding pouch in the water, hanging onto the tail of string. Tie the string to a handle on the side of the pot. Ensure that the pudding pouch floats freely in the water and that the string keeps the bottom of the pudding from sinking. You do not want the pudding pouch to rest on the bottom of the pot, as that could cause it to burn.

Partially cover the pot. Begin boiling some more water. Any time a significant amount of steam has escaped from your cooking pot, you need to top it up with boiling water. If you do not, the water level will go down and part of your pudding, held up by the string, will no longer be in the water and will not cook properly. How often you need to add boiling water depends on your pot. Do not add cold water, it must be already boiling so that the pudding continues to cook.

Boil the pudding for at least 2 1/2 and more like 3 hours. Realistically you aren’t going to overcook it, so going longer is fine. You can keep the pudding warm by keeping it in the hot water for a while after you turn off the heat.

To serve, remove the pudding pouch from the water. Untie or cut off the string(s) holding it closed and dump it out onto a platter. Yes, the kitchen towel that just came out of boiling water is hot. To check doneness, stick a long skewer through the pudding; it should come out clean.

Let the pudding rest for a few minutes to let some of the excess water steam off. When ready to serve, take it to the table and pour a few tablespoons of brandy over the top of the pudding.

Turn down the lights. Have a wet towel and a glass of water handy just in case. And a fire extinguisher, but you can’t eat the pudding if you use a fire extinguisher on it.

Light the brandy on fire. Yes, fire. Sing a Christmas song and admire the blue flames.

Most of the brandy will just fall down to the platter. Carefully pour it off, then light the pudding on fire again to burn off the alcohol. Slice the pudding like bread and serve.

(Optional) The pudding is good as is, but you can also make a pudding sauce. A simple recipe is a half cup butter and a cup sugar, combine in a pot and cook on low heat until the butter is melted, then whisk until the sugar is dissolved. Add about a quarter cup of heavy cream and whisk the sauce some more. Pour the sauce over the slices of pudding.

(Optional) It’s traditional to add brandy to the pudding, and you could certainly do that. The thing is, the pudding tastes really, really good on its own. Perhaps a better option would be to add brandy to the pudding sauce as you’re cooking it. That way you can control how much of the alcohol flavor you want by choosing how much pudding sauce you use, and the pudding itself can still be enjoyed by those who don’t want or can’t have the alcohol.