The joy of leeks

Bob Bell from Ashington shares his love of leeks on BBC Radio4 (Saturday Live, Feb 2 2008)

You'll have to dip into the boxfiles to listen....my earlier attempt to embed a player failed dismally.....and there's dishes to wash (hey, and copyright be damned.....in a few days this audio snippet will disappear from the BBC website, probably never to be heard again until some arty worthy many years in the future decides to dust off the archives and make it available to the nation!)

Bob mentions the fabled geordie "Leek Pudding", so here's the recipe I use....

1 lb self-raising flour
8 oz suet (beef or the vegetarian variety works equally well)
1 tsp salt
1 lb finely sliced leeks, including the green bits!
cold water to mix

Mix the dry ingredients and sliced leeks in a bowl and add enough cold water to make a just slightly sticky dough (that'll be the technical term!). Now you have 2 options, either use the mixture as dumplings (mould into small balls and add to a casserole for the last 30 mins of cooking time) OR you can do it the traditional way and wrap the whole mixture in muslin and steam for an hour or so until cooked through. (oh, and the leftovers are delicious sliced and fried until crisp and brown round the edges in bacon fat "the morning after". Look, to be honest that's the best bit.....so my advice is: make twice as much as you think you can comfortably eat!)

LATER....Whoops, forgot to add the link to the British Leeks website!