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Ingredients

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• 1 small pumpkin
• 2 tbsp ground nut oil
• 16 sprigs sprouting broccoli
• 4 tbspn olive oil
• 12 garlic gloves, leave them in their skins if you like
• 2 medium red chilli peppers, de-seeded, finely diced
• 2 tbspn pumpkin seeds, toasted
• 100g watercress or roquette or baby spinach
• 3 tbspn roughly chopped flat leaf parlsey
• 1 tbsp toasted flaked almonds
• Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

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Method

Peel the pumpkin. Cut it in half, remove the seeds. Leave the seeds to dry in a warm environment for a few days. Place seeds on a baking sheet, lightly drizzle with ground nut oil, season with sea salt, place in a pre-heated 100°c oven for approximately an hour until golden brown. Store in a sealed container until required.

Cut the pumpkin in to chunky chip segments, approximately 15mm at their thickest. Lightly brush with olive oil and season.

Heat a ribbed griddle pan and when extremely hot char griddle the pumpkin on all sides, to get a smokey flavour.

It is likely the griddling won’t completely cook the pumpkin, it is likely it will require finishing in a pre-heated 180°C oven for 10 minutes.

Brush the sprouting broccoli with a little olive oil and season. Char griddle for a few minutes to gain a smoky flavour. Transfer to a baking sheet with garlic and part cooked pumpkin and bake in a pre-heated oven for 15 minutes until the garlic softens and the vegetables have cooked.

Remove from the oven, place cooked ingredients in a mixing bowl, add the chilli, parsley, almonds and a little olive oil if you like. Season. Fold all the ingredients together. At the last minute fold through some baby spinach or watercress or roquette so that it wilts slightly. Serve.

For the suet pastry

• 300g self-raising flour
• 150g shredded suet
• 200ml water
• Malden salt

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Sieve the flour and salt together into a mixing bowl. Add the suet, stir in the water and season. Mix the ingredients into a fairly firm dough.

Wrap it in a damp tea towel or cling film and rest it in the fridge for 20 minutes. Now you’re ready to roll. Lightly flour a surface and roll the pastry about 7mm thick.

Choose a 1ltr sized pudding basin, and grease it well with butter. When lining the basin, leave 2cm of pastry overhanging the lip.

Roll out a circle slightly larger than the top of the basin. When the basin has been filled with the steak and kidney mixture, brush the perimeter of the overhang with cold water before topping with the "lid" circle. Now you can trim excess lid pastry and overhang.

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For the filling – serves 4

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil or beef dripping
• 450g chuck steak – into 2.5cm cubes
• 225g lambs kidney – cut in half – white "cortex" removed
• 2 carrots, peeled, roughly cut 1cm dice
• 2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 celery sticks, roughly chopped
• 200g button mushrooms, halved
• 300ml brown ale
• 600ml veal stock or beef stock from a stock cube
• 1 bay leaf
• Malden salt, freshly ground black pepper

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Method

Heat the dripping or vegetable oil in a large pan, brown off the beef and kidney. Remove the pan, reserve. In the sauce pan brown off the carrots, onions, celery and mushrooms in a touch more dripping or oil.

Now add the beer to the vegetables. Allow the beer to reduce by two thirds. Now add the stock and bay – simmer. Now add the steak and kidney, lid on and simmer on a low heat for 1½ hours. It is important that the meat is not yet tender – it will finish cooking when we steam the pudding. Season and allow to cool.

Once cool, strain through a colander, reserving the cooking liquid and removing the bay leaf. Spoon the meat and vegetables into the lined pudding basin and add just enough sauce to JUST cover. Put the pastry lid on.

Now top the pudding basin with a sheet of buttered greaseproof. Fold a crease/pleat into the paper, so that as the suet top rises, the paper can expand. Tie the greaseproof around the top of the bowl with string.

Place your largest pan on the hob. Place an upturned dessert plate or soup bowl in the bottom of the pan. Place the pudding dish on the plate. Fill the pan with boiling water from the kettle until it comes to 4cm below the top of the pudding basin. Lid on and simmer the pudding for 1½ hours – keep checking your water level.

Any remaining gravy can be re-heated to pour over the pudding when served.

Ingredients

• 150g pumpkin wedges, approx. 2cm thick.
• 2 tbspn syrup from crystalised ginger
• 100g crystalised ginger (and extra for presentation)
• 50g plain flour
• A pinch of salt
• 1x 5ml spoon baking powder
• 175g stale white breadcrumbs
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g shredded suet
• Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
• 2 eggs
• 150ml milk
• Butter for greasing the pudding moulds

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Method

Place the peeled pumpkin wedges on a lightly oiled baking tray. Drizzle with crystalized ginger syrup and bake in a preheated 180°C oven for 15 minutes until they start to soften and the syrup has caramelised golden over the pumpkin. Allow to cool, then cut to a very small dice (approx. 3-4mm).

Cut the crystalised ginger to small 3-4mm dice. Mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Stir in the breadcrumbs, sugar, suet and lemon rind.

Beat together the eggs, lemon juice and about half the milk. Stir in to the dry ingredients, adding more milk if required, to make a soft dropping consistency.

Fold through the pumpkin and ginger. Put the mixture in to 6 x 125ml pudding moulds. Cover with greased paper and steam for 45 minutes. Leave for 5 minutes, then turn out. Serve with custard sauce and top with further finely chopped stem ginger and ginger syrup.