beef suet? check.

A little while back, I posted about wanting to make plum puddings. The only thing standing in my way was beef suet (as I learned, this is hard fat around beef kidneys). But as it turns out, there are still great, stand-alone butcher shops who are happy to introduce you to this marvel baking ingredient of old.

Fast forward a couple weeks and our traditional Christmas puddings (along with mincemeat!) are curing in the cool darkness of the garage, with whiskey slowing permeating every morsel of dried fruit and candied peel.

What I loved about making these dishes was how apparent it became that they originated in faraway, cold places whose residents certainly did not have the luxury of California’s year-round farms and produce aisles. The recipes are based on breadcrumbs, candied peel, dried fruit, and alcohol. It was all about making do with what used to be sweet a few months back.

Stirring everything together, I was reminded of meeting a man in Ireland who must have been in his 80s. Mike and I met him on a walk, and he told us how vividly he remembered getting a singular ripe orange for a present as a little boy one year, how exotic it seemed in the middle of a dark, cold winter.

Even in the smallest of ways, I felt a little more connected to that sentiment as the puddings steamed away on the stovetop for a whole afternoon and evening, filling the house with the warm, spiced smell of Christmas.

But just so I don’t get too carried away romanticizing hardship, I will also tell you about the wayward history of plum pudding: It turns out that in the 1600s, the dessert was banned by the Puritans because it was made with alcohol. What can I say. Even when I don't intend to be, I am drawn to the sweet-toothed sacrilegious.

the slow candy

Here is the thing about me, and I’m sure all of you can relate: Along with seeking quick-hit-projects like the poncho, I simultaneously crave longer, more absorbing projects.

This is why I recently passed over recipes offering quick! easy! ways to candy fruit peel and instead settled on the one that took three days. Not three days of constant attention – I’m not that much of a nutcase or shut-in. But still. Three days of shepherding the fruit through soaking, simmering, absorbing and more simmering. Three days of on-and-off tending to a pot that made our apartment smell like fresh marmalade and created fruit as bright and translucent as stained glass windows.

This candied fruit is headed into our Christmas puddings, and as my sisters will attest, I’m always annoying them with my eagerness to start new traditions.

This is one I hope will stick, so I wanted to do it up right.

 

planning ahead. way ahead.

This is crazy talk, but I have to confess that I’m already thinking about the holidays. This is a sickness, I know. I hate that the drugstore has been pushing Halloween since mid-summer. Now I’m no better than they.

But of course, I’m about to try and justify this madness. My in-laws were going to come to California from Ireland for the holidays, and that made me want to try and replicate Christmas puddings we have over there, complete with brandy cream. And that requires some planning ahead.

I dug out a recipe from the holy grail of Irish cooking, the Ballymaloe Cookbook. Apparently, the puddings need to mature for about six weeks, so I can cool my gung-ho pudding craze for the moment. But I do need to secure some shredded beef suet, which apparently is fat around beef kidneys. That might take me a while.

In the meantime, here’s another make-ahead-for-the-holidays project. It’s called bachelor jam, and the recipe is from my beloved go-to preserving book. Everytime I open the book, I'm plunged into daydreams of wellies and hedgerow fruit and Irish stovetops.

As author Pam Corbin explains, this isn't really a jam, but a cocktail of rum-soaked fruit: 

“The idea is that the mixture of fruit, alcohol and sugar is added to gradually, as different fruits ripen throughout the growing season. This preserve is usually prepared with Christmas in mind, when the potent fruity alcohol is drunk and the highly spirited fruit can be served on its own or with ice cream and puddings. “

How delicious does that sound? And I love that you just kick back and let alcohol take care of business. Much like our holidays usually go.

We started with the strawberries below, and have since added raspberries, blackberries from our urban foraging, and late-summer peaches. No strange animal lard required.