Bacon and Onion Individual Suet Meat Pudding 4 x 420g on Average

In a world full of ready meals loaded with ingredients that sound like they belong in a test tube and padded out with sugar in three different forms (all those ‘ose’ ingredients) even in something like macaroni cheese — I kid you not! — it’s a pleasure to find straightforward, honest, well-made food, just like your grannie made. (If you were lucky enough to have that kind of grannie.)I’m as keen as anyone — probably keener than most — on discovering food from all around the world and searching Amazon for weird ingredients I’ve had to look up on Wikipedia. But I’m aware that, like lots of others, I’m in danger of forgetting that in Britain we are lucky to have some of the finest traditional food in the world. However most of these never get into the supermarket ready meal category that so many of us rely on when we’re pushed for time or energy, so we enjoy them more and more rarely. Perhaps a growing generation has yet even to discover traditional British food.Maybe it’s not in our supermarkets because most of our traditional food relies on long, slow cooking and for some reason the supermarkets seem not to have enough time to cook those (go figure). Or maybe it’s because our traditional meals were created to be real rib-stickers in times when we were more physically active and needed heating from within because we had no central heating to keep us warm from without. But tastes and activities have changed and so all we get offered currently are endless varieties of calorie-counted curry and pasta instead. Excellent as most of these are these days (I’m old enough to remember early incarnations with some horror!) nevertheless I sometimes yearn for the kind of simple food with a few basic ingredients that our grannies — or maybe our grannie’s grannie — would turn into hearty, flavourful dishes that made a feast out of inexpensive ingredients.Rural French cooks get so much credit just for doing the same and traditional British food easily can easily compete with the best of it. Except we seem to have forgotten our wonderful heritage. Why? Maybe because more of us left the land and moved into industrial cities earlier than the French did, or maybe as we got richer through our empire our traditional food became associated with poverty because when they couldn’t just waltz into a supermarket and buy anything the world has to offer, our great-great grannies knew how to make the best of what they had, using every fragment of meat and every simple vegetable without fuss, but with care. Above all, with time. And where French cooks classically makes use of sauces to enhance their ingredients British food traditionally lets the simplest of ingredients shine without fuss.And these little — not so little really! — puddings are wonderful exemplars of all those traditional British food virtues: simple, honest ingredients in that most traditional of British dishes, a pudding. Not for nothing did someone once described us as a race of pudding eaters, and they didn’t just mean the sweet stuff. Not at all. We can, and regularly did, take almost any ingredient and steam or boil it, often after surrounding it in what might be called our national pastry, the suet crust. Then it had to be cooked for hour after hour until it eventually turned into a golden parcel of savoury deliciousness. Really, what could be nicer on a chilly day? Or after a tough day in almost any weather: the ultimate in comfort food.However there used not to be a shortcut if you wanted to satisfy your savoury pudding craving in a hurry. Now there is. Someone else has made the pastry, prepared the filling and then put in the hours of patient watching and so all you need to do is reheat. Hoorah! You can even do it in a microwave. (As I write this I can feel rumbling tremors under my feet of all my grannies and grannie’s grannie’s grannies down through the ages turning in their graves!)But — by now you may be impatient to know — are they any good? They're delicious! And they look exactly like the picture: no different, which means there are no gaping holes where filling ought to be. They are stuffed full of good ingredients.The suet crust is light and thin enough to ensure the pastry isn’t just a thick, sodden lump but there’s easily enough of it to satisfy the most ardent suet crust lover. (That’s me.) The interior is kept moist by the onions but also by the merest suggestion of a savoury white sauce pulling the filling together. The bacon is generous and meltingly tender and there is a touch of herbs; I detected sage, I think. (Which, for me, added a faint whisper of Christmas dinners past!)As for the size, I can’t see how anyone could be disappointed. I’d say you’d only want a whole pudding each if you have a very robust appetite indeed, and many — probably most — people would be satisfied with sharing one between two, if serving it with vegetables. I suggest plain boiled tatties, a mountain of just barely-cooked, well-buttered cabbage (with a hint of freshly-grated nutmeg) and some orange-zest-glazed carrot batons. Or just open a can of baked beans!Sharing makes these a much more economical price than they might at first seem but even at one each they are not far out of line with supermarket ‘Finest’ ready meals and so much more of a treat. Yet they are just as quick and easy to cook and serve.And these really are a treat. I don’t think even the most dedicated pudding-eater could eat a whole one of this not-so-little beauties every day unless doing much more manual work than most of us do these days. I don’t know what the calorie load of a whole one is but I’m guessing it’s larger than most people’s everyday lunch or supper. But I’d also guess that sharing one brings it much more in line with most people’s eating habits. So the treat is being able to enjoy hearty, traditional British food without any of the effort and time you’d have to devote to it if starting from scratch. And there’s the additional joy of the suet pastry, surely almost and endangered ‘species’ these days, and so delicious.That was the long part. Here’s the short version: these are honest (just like the photo) traditional fare, full of flavour, made with care, easy to prepare, stuffed with filling, masses to share — and delicious. And I’m writing this review because I’ve just come back to order twice as many this time.‘Nuff said. Buy, try, enjoy.(There also seems to be a secret ingredient that makes you prone to writing in rhymes!)

These puddings comes in there on little dishes, the pastry is light, the contents are really lovely and tasty, you are able to freeze them so they would be ideal for Christmas as well as any other day. They cook quick, just can't believe how good they are, we loved them so much I have ordered some more, even our son loved the taste so have ordered him some as well, thank you for such a lovely tasty pudding.

This is like a trip back in time for me. My late mum used to - as a treat - make suet puddings such as this and steak and kidney. These are as good as mum's - and I cannot give any higher praise than that. Tasty, generously filled, with fantastic texture on the suet casing. I'll certainly be ordering more!

Delighted to have discovered these lovely puddings, ideal as winter warmers, but great at anytime. They are the taste of my childhood and made with quality ingredients. They taste homemade and all the preparation work has been done. No hours of steaming, simply 4 minutes in the microwave and you are done. Simple perfection...brilliant.

I was really looking forward to these pies but I was dissapointed. I followed the instructions for microwaving them but the pastry always came out a bit rubbery and the filling was very gloopy. It tasted OK but not great. All in all a disappointment. Won’t buy these again. I’ve looked at the other flavours and I’m tempted but the experience with this pie has not been great so I’ll give it a miss.

I hesitated a while before ordering this pack, because of the price, but I have always loved bacon and onion pudding ever since I was instructed how to make it by my mother-in-law as a family favourite. The photo looked very inviting and made my mouth water so much that I just had to treat myself, just to see what these ones tasted like. We always had ours with boiled potatoes and tinned garden peas, and drizzled brown HP sauce over it (never gravy!), and that is how I dished up one of mine on the day they arrived (the remaining three are in the freezer). It was very quick to prepare, and was even more delicious than I had anticipated, and whatever the sauce is that's on the inside made it so moist and tasty - even more so than the family recipe puddings which I used to have to simmer for three hours in a big saucepan on the stove top, wrapped up in a tea towel and secured with a huge safety pin!! I did consider that these were a bit pricey, especially with the P&P added to the cost, but I'm SO glad that I decided to treat myself. It was worth paying that bit more for them (not that I've ever seen bacon & onion pudding anywhere else), and I'm SO looking forward to working my way through the rest of the pies in due course.

Absolutly excellent.If you have a need for Tradiotional British main meals and have a good apetite,then look no further.When you eaten one of these puddings,You know you've had a good meal.I've now,enjoyed several recently and once,my stock has reduced,then,I will be ordering more.Well worth looking at this Company's other pruducts.The Steak and Ale and Steak and Kidney are as good as the Bacon and Onion.

I asked the question about what looked like a long delivery period. The seller responded very quickly and true to their word, it arrived the next day.So glad I bought these. Big, hearty portions (one pudding lasted me two meals), lovely pastry and no skimping on the filling. I'd buy again.