Ham and Pease pudding stotties, a great Geordie institution.

Ham and Pease pudding stotties, a great Geordie institution.

More good things for sandwiches……..

Pease pudding a Victorian paupers dinner, fit for royalty. The French may have foie gras and truffles but the North has pease pudding.

Pease pudding hot,
Pease pudding cold,
Pease pudding in the pot
Nine days old.

Some like it hot,
Some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot
Nine days old.

So goes the nursery rhyme. I would neither suggest you reheat pease pudding many times or keep it for nine days I have and it’s not very appealing. However when freshly made spread on to warm stotties with thickly sliced home cooked ham it is a real treat.

For the pudding

1lb of dried split yellow peas
1 unsmoked ham shank or small gammon joint or a packet of bacon scraps of you are feeling dented
1 carrot
1 onion
1 egg
flour
a pudding cloth or new dish cloth


Soak the ham in water overnight and the peas separately. Place the peas in a bundle in the cloth and tie them loosely they will expand a lot. Put the pudding in the pan with the vegetable all peeled and left whole and the meat cover with water and bring to the boil simmer gently the peas will take about an hour, then remove the cloth and tie it over the sink to drain. Continue cooking the meat till the small bone on the shank can easily be removed, or in the case of a gammon joint it gives little resistance to a knife when poked. (For bacon scraps an hour will be plenty) Retain the liquor for soup just add more vegetables carrot and onion diced and simmer till soft mix in ant spare pudding and meat scraps and you have a hearty soup for a cold winters day.

Back to the pudding remove the peas from the cloth and either put them in a food processor and blend till smooth or use a potato masher mixing in the egg as you go, at this point some add bits of meat chopped up I don’t. Now place you pudding mix back in to the cloth which has been floured and hang it again over night over the tap in the kitchen sink. The heat of peas will cook the egg, some recipes require you to boil the pudding again for a further hour you don’t need to. The next day thickly slice the ham butter the stottie cakes and smear with pease pudding. Any excess pudding will keep in the fridge for 4-5 days the ham it is best to keep for three days but both can be frozen with good results.

Stotties

Stotties are a speciality of the North East, a large flat bread bap the size of a dinner plate with a soft texture, soft crust and a small indent in the middle to stop them rising. They can be made at home but it’s a good excuse to go the Newcastle to the Grainger market just to buy them in my opinion. If you haven’t got the time or inclinations don’t despair, white bread baps as long as they are fresh will make an adequate substitute.