from vegetarianliving.co.uk
For many of us who grew up with BBC children's TV before it became CBeebies, Clangers are charming knitted creatures who speak in slide whistle tones and live on a planet with a Soup Dragon. However, in Bedfordshire, a clanger was the equivalent of a Cornish pasty. It was lunch for agricultural workers with a savoury end and a sweet end tucked inside a suet crust.
With the resurgence of interest in local foods, a Bedfordshire baker, Gunn's, reintroduced the almost forgotten clanger and they now sell all sorts, including a vegetarian one. They have changed to a baked pastry crust, though. If you want to bake yours, you can use the patty dough (above), omitting the turmeric, or use a shortcrust or bought puff pastry. Oven-steaming is easy – it just sounds complicated to set up. Alternatively, put your clangers on a trivet in a pressure cooker.
You may not want the traditional bottle of cold tea to wash your clanger down, but clangers do make great picnic food – whether you've been toiling in the field or just hiking through it.
Ingredients
1 tbsp oil
200g mushrooms
salt and pepper
1 tbsp cinnamon
400g plain flour
200g vegetable suet
a few cloves
300g leeks, cleaned
a few sprigs of thyme
1–2 apples, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
about 300ml water
Method
Stage 1
Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Put a kettle of water on to boil. Find a large roasting tin with a rack and have ready some kitchen foil.
Stage 2
Fry the leeks and mushrooms briskly in the oil. Strip the leaves from the thyme and add to the leeks and season well. Prepare the apple and mix with the cinnamon and sugar.
Stage 3
Combine the flour, baking powder and suet. Stir in as much water as is needed to make a stiff dough. Knead very lightly. Divide into 4 and, on a floured board, roll each out to a rectangle about 25 x 22cm.
Stage 4
Trim the edges to neaten, and use the trimmings to make a dividing 'wall' two-thirds of the way along the pastry rectangle. Divide the leek mixture between the rectangles, placing it middle of the larger section of the dough. Put the apple the other side of the dividing 'wall'.
Stage 5
Dampen the edges and fold the sides in to make a flattish baton shape. Press the ends to seal then put the clangers on the rack, seam-side down. Mark the apple end by pressing a few cloves into the dough.
Stage 6
Carefully fill the roasting tin with water. Put the rack over the water and cover with a loose 'bonnet' of foil, scrunching the foil tightly around the edges of the tin. This will give the clangers room to expand but keep the steam from evaporating. Put the roasting tin in the oven and cook for 2 hours.
Remove the foil very carefully so as to avoid being scalded by the steam. Serve, or if picnicking, wrap in foil and put in a 'cool' bag to keep warm.
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