Christmas pudding as per French food magazine

[Hereford]

Who gave this information to a French food journalist!?

Read yesterday in the November/December edition of Maxi Cuisine in an article on "Christmas around the globe":

In the Uk:  "on prépare le repas dès debut décembre avec l'élaboration du Christmas Pudding, un gateau aux zestes d`orange, raisins secs, cerises confits, graisse de rognon de boeuf et soupe brandy (un alcool local) cuit à la vapeur 6 heures quel'on macérer jusqu'à Noël."

I love Christmas pudding (I know lots of people don't) but the above sounds quite horrible. I made my puds a month ago and they have lots more ingredients than this! Including dark beer, black treacle and in my case "vegetarian" suet.  I do not touch them again until 25th - certainly not "macérer" them.

My Christmas cake is in the oven and I don't "macérer" that either...  Just mincemeat to make now.

Happy holiday preparations to all.

Mrs H

[idun]

 [:D]This has made me smile, bit like the bechamel sauce recipe I once saw, heat your milk and put grated cheese in it......... yummeeeee!

[pomme]

In case anyone wants a further discussion on recipes, there is one in The Guardian today, The perfect Christmas Pudding

As noted in the article, Stir-up Sunday is the last Sunday before Advent (20 November this year).

I'm not too sure about the final version in the article - looks too brown and more like a long-steamed Spotted Dick fruit pudding. I prefer my Christmas pudding to be like my grandmother made (and the recipe my family still use), nearly black and steamed for eight hours or more. Plenty of suet to give it a glossy appearance.

The French recipe has certain similarities to the pain aux fruits des Noëls alsaciens, Berawecka/Bireweke apart from the suet.

[idun]

Perfect?  Only Gary Rhodes looked OK.

Love mine very very fruit rich and nearly black with long steaming and never too sweet.

Don't care about any other recipe than my own, everyone loves it, even people who have previously not bothered with xmas pud.

So what do you good people serve yours with, me, I always make white rum sauce, much to the surprise of a friend from down south who had the impression that northerners were rather uncouth, as they had never had rum sauce before and loved it. Their comment being that how could  northerners have something so refined and delicious..........[Www] Sometimes words do fail me, and in general this person is lovely[:D]

[woolybanana]

Nothing like enough brandy in any of these recipes. My ma used to hold the spoon steady, letting the brandy pour over the edge, counting very, very, very slowly. I reckon she would treble or quadruple the suggested amount. But the puds kept forever in the fridge and by Bobo did they have a taste.

Oh, and, of course there was suet in a Xmas puddin and the mincemeat too..

Happy days.

[Hereford]

Brandy butter Idun - Rum does not agree with me.  My puds are very dark and I use a recipe from the 1970's that my mother used.

I don't have suet in my mincemeat now.  I ran out two or three years ago so googled "last minute mincemeat".  It is the nicest mincemeat ever!  Uses butter and is very quick to make. Keeps very well even though it uses butter.

[idun]

If I have run out of rum, I make a brandy sauce instead.

When in France, if I was keeping my suet for dumplings, would use grated butter in my mincemeat, the thing, I think, is that mincemeat needs some fat in it.

My french butcher could sometimes get me suet, but not always, so I did tend to bring it back with me.

[Pierre ZFP]

I used to make Christmas pud but since I'm the only one in my household that likes it, I decided it was too much faff and so I buy a Waitrose or Tesco's finest one which does very well for me.

To go with it?  Custard and plenty of it [:P] oh and vanilla ice cream too [:P][:P]