Dumplings for stews
- Fraser Steele
- Mar 4
- 2 min read
Ingredients
Makes enough dumplings for four people
100 g self raising flour, plus extra for dusting
60 g suet (beef or vegetable)
a good pinch of salt
dried herbs and spices to taste (a teaspoon each of rosemary and thyme in this recipe)
water
Method
Mix the self raising flour and suet with salt and herbs (also black pepper and chilli if you like) then add about 60 ml water and mix into a dough. Add more water if the dough is too dry, add flour if you've added too much water.
Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes.
Form the dumplings - this recipe makes eight largish dumplings, or 16 small dumplings.
Steam or boil for 20 minutes until they are light and fluffy.
For at least one of our kids, dumplings are the highlight of a stew. The texture is different to most other foods, because of the suet.
Beef suet comes from the fat around the cow's kidneys, vegetable suet is solidified vegetable oil and flour. Suet has a higher melting point than other fats such as lard and butter, so when the dough is being prepared it doesn't melt around the flour. During steaming the fat melts, forming voids in the dough and allowing the gas generated by the self-raining flour to plump up the dough. This results in a softer finished product.
Suet is used in many traditional British recipes. Dumplings, as shown here, and to make pastry for steamed puddings such as steak & kidney pudding. It's used in sweet dishes, too; one of my father-in-law's favourites was spotted dick, a steamed suet pudding full of dried fruit and served with custard.
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