The Bedfordshire clanger is a pudding, a suet crust dumpling that can be filled with liver or pork and onion or bacon and potatoes (called “bacon badger” and typical of Buckinghamshire) or other meat and vegetables flavored with sage and other herbs.
It can be eaten hot or cold.
It is a dish from Bedfordshire and the adjacent English counties: Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.
Sometimes one end of the food can be filled with fruit or sweet jam and according to the “Bedfordshire Magazine” from the ’60s it is called:” ‘alf an’ ‘alf” (half and half), with the term “clanger” reserved for the savory version only.
The word “clanger” is related to the dialect term “clung”, used with the meaning of “heavy” in relation to food.
Clangers were historically made by women for their husbands to take to agricultural work as a midday meal: it has been suggested that the crust was not originally intended for consumption but to protect the fillings from dirty hands of workers, similar to cornish pasties.
Traditionally, it was boiled in a cloth like other suet puddings.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 2 pieces
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: English
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 11.5 oz flour
- 3.5 oz suet
- 1.75 oz butter
- cup water
- 2 egg
- to taste salt
- lb ground pork (or liver)
- 1 onion
- to taste sage
- to taste herbs
- to taste olive oil
- to taste salt
Steps
For the pastry: work the flour with salt, suet, butter. Add water and 1 beaten egg.
For the filling: mix the ground pork with onion, a drizzle of olive oil, sage, and other flavored herbs. Add any vegetables (peas or other vegetables). Season with salt.
From the dough, make 2 rectangles of 6 x 3 inches, distribute the filling (but not along the whole length), roll up, trim the ends, and seal.
Brush with a beaten egg.
Bake in the oven at 356°F for 20 minutes.
Bedfordshire is northwest of London in the English countryside, a popular place for visitors and people looking to escape the city.
