Buckinghamshire Regional Recipes

Buckinghamshire is a county in the south-east region of England, and these are a collection of local and regional recipes handed down within families who have lived and worked in the Buckinghamshire area. All of the recipes below are regionally authentic, originally coming from recipe books published in the 1800s or 1900s, with the weights and measurements adjusted (alongside the old standards) where appropriate for the modern kitchen.

 

BACON DUMPLING

Ingredients: 500g of plain flour, 200g shredded suet, 3 tbsp water, 12 rashers of rind-less bacon (diced small), 2 Onions (finely chopped, sweated in butter till golden in a frying pan), 2 Potatoes (peeled and grated), a little chopped fresh sage, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to season.

Make a stiff paste with the flour, shredded suet, a pinch of salt and water – add more flour if a little sticky. Knead it with your hands for a minute or two so that it becomes silky. Then roll out the paste to 3cm thick in a large rectangle on a floured work surface. Cover the whole area with the diced bacon, the sweated and chopped onions, grated potato and sprinkle over the sage and seasoning. Moisten the edges and roll up the pastry, seal the ends. Then roll in a double thickness of greaseproof paper and secure at both ends, wrap up in clean cloth, secure with string or safety-pins, and boil or steam for 2 to 3 hours. Unwrap and cut up to serve thick slices.

 

CHERRY TURNOVERS

Ingredients: Cherries, Brown Sugar, 500g self raising flour, 200g lard, pinch salt, cold water to mix

Cut lard into small pieces, then rub lightly into flour. Mix to a stiff paste with water. Roll out once to 1 cm thickness. Cut out rounds with a medium sized saucer. Stalk and wash the cherries. Put about a dozen on one half of pastry round, cover liberally with soft brown sugar, leaving a margin of 2cm, which is moistened with cold water. Turn over the other half of pastry and pinch edges together firmly. Brush with egg, milk or water, dredge with castor sugar. Put on greased tin and bake in hot oven for 20 or 30 minutes. Eat hot or cold.

 

STOKENCHURCH PIE

Ingredients: 500g of plain flour, 800g meat (any cooked meat like lamb or beef chopped small), 100ml Beef stock, 200g lard, 3 hard-boiled eggs, 100g dried pasta, a little salt, a little water.

Mince or cut up the cooked meat and add to a little thickened beef stock. Boil the dried pasta in salt water until tender, cut up small and mix with the meat. Cut up the hard-boiled eggs. Make pastry with the flour and lard, (rub in the soft lard to the flour until it makes bread-crumbs and then add one or two tablespoons of water to bind) roll out and line a well-greased pie tin. Put in half the meat, the eggs, and then the rest of the meat on top. Cover with pastry. Make a hole in the centre, and brush over the top crust with milk. Bake in a hot oven for 30 minutes.