Magical Cooking #81 - 19th Feb 2025
Magical Cooking - Nettle Pudding
The Oldest Recipe in the UK and possibly the World.
This very nutritious savoury pudding is made with stinging nettles and other plants packed with goodies of every kind. FREE and HEALTHY!
You will need -
1 bunch of sorrel
1 bunch of watercress
1 bunch of dandelion leaves
2 bunches of young nettle leaves
half a bunch of chives
85g of pearl barley
1/2 teaspoon of salt
How to make it -
Weight the barley and add a little warm water to get it going.
Chop the herbs finely and then mix in the barley and salt.
Add enough water to bind it together (not too much, your looking for a dumpling consistency) and place in the centre of a linen or muslin cloth.
Tie the cloth securely and add to a pot of simmering (whatever you eat! in the olden days it would have been venison or wild boar, but a pork joint will do just as well. (Nobody was vegan in those days)
Make sure the string is long enough to pull the pudding out of the pot when needed.
Cook the pudding until the meat is done (at least two hours).
Leave the pudding to cool slightly, remove the muslin, then cut the pudding into thick slices with a knife. (Will look like meatloaf)
Serve the pudding with chunks of barley bread.
The pudding can be served along side the meat with which it was cooked, or it can be served as its own stand-alone dish.