For a small pudding take a pound of fresh beef suet. Clear it from
the skin and the stringy fibres, and mince it as finely as
possible. Sift into a large pan two pounds of fine flour, and add
the suet gradually, rubbing it fine with your hands and mixing it
thoroughly. Then pour in, by degrees, enough of cold water to make
a stiff dough. Roll it out into a large even sheet. Have ready
about a pound and a half of the best beef-steak, omitting the bone
and fat which should be all cut off. Divide the steak into small
thin pieces, and beat them well to make them tender. Season them
with pepper and salt, and, if convenient, add some mushrooms. Lay
the beef in the middle of the sheet of paste, and put on the top a
bit of butter rolled in flour. Close the paste nicely over the
meat as if you were making a large dumpling. Dredge with flour a
thick square cloth, and tie the pudding up in it, leaving space
for it to swell. Fasten the string very firmly, and stop up with
flour the little gap at the tying-place so that no water can get
in. Have ready a large pot of boiling water. Put the pudding into
it, and let it boil fast three hours or more. Keep up a good fire
under it, as if it stops boiling a minute the crust will be heavy.
Have a kettle of boiling water at the fire to replenish the pot if
it wastes too much. Do not take up the pudding till the moment
before it goes to table. Mix some catchup with the gravy on your
plate.
For a large pudding you must have two pounds of suet, three pounds
of flour, and two pounds and a half of meat. It must boil at least
five hours.
All the fat must be removed from the meat before it goes into the
pudding, as the gravy cannot be skimmed when enclosed in the
crust.
You may boil in the pudding some potatoes cut into slices.
A pudding of the lean of mutton chops may be made in the same
manner; also of venison steaks.