Childhood memories come flooding back with Bacon and Onion Roly Poly. A suet pudding filled with bacon and onion and served with cabbage and potatoes was always a firm favourite. This is another simple and delicious recipe
I do love Roly Poly suet dishes, whether savoury or sweet, and either baked or steamed. My preference, though, is for baked roly poly. Made with a suet pastry which is rolled out and then covered with bacon and onions and then rolled up this is a deliciously savoury dish.
I remember this from my childhood and haven’t eaten it much since then. I did make it a few years ago, and posted in on this blog. However at that time I wasn’t doing videos so I thought it was time to make it again.
So, Bacon & Onion Roly Poly, a simple and quite quick to make dish this is very good indeed. Although I baked mine, and that took about an hour, the roll can also be wrapped in parchment paper and then in aluminium foil and steamed for about 3 hours to achieve an equally tasty but a more stodgy pudding. The steamed version is probably more traditional.
My baked version turned out very well indeed. It baked perfectly and tasted so good.
Although the recipe below calls for self raising flour if you don’t have that you can use plain flour but you must add 3 teaspoons of baking powder into that flour and thoroughly mix to achieve the same result as self raising flour.
Still looking for a tasty dinner option? Try Cottage Pie, or Shepherd’s Pie.
Bacon & Onion Roly Poly – Video
Ingredients:
- 225g(1 1/2 cups, based on scooping packed flour into 250ml cup) self raising flour
- 300g(10 1/2 oz) bacon, chopped into about one inch squares
- 1 onion, chopped
- 110g(1 cup) suet
- pinch of salt
- cold water( I used about 8 tablespoons)
- 1 or 2 stock cubes, such as Oxo, to crumble over the filling
- milk for brushing
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/400F
- Place the bacon into a frying pan and gently fry to release any excess liquid. Don’t fry any longer than needed for the liquid to be released.
- Drain the bacon and place into a bowl to cool.
- Place the flour, suet and salt into a large bowl and stir to combine.
- Add a couple of tablespoons of water and stir around to mix into the dry ingredients.
- Continue adding water, a little at a time, and stirring until the mixture forms into a dough(you can use your hands to pull it into a dough. (I needed 8 tablespoons of water but the amount may differ).
- Place the dough on a floured work surface and roll out into a rectangle about 10 inches by 13 inches.
- Spread the bacon over the pastry, leaving a good gap around the edges.
- Sprinkle the onion over the top of the bacon.
- Sprinkle the stock cube(s) over the onion.
- Season with salt and pepper if desired(my bacon was salty enough that I didn’t need to do this).
- Brush the edge of the pastry with water or milk.
- Using the short side of the pastry gently roll it up, as tight as you can, to enclose the filling and create a roll.
- Pinch pastry together at each end to seal the roll entirely.
- Brush the roll with some milk.
- Place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
- Place in the oven and bake for 50 minutes to one hour, until nicely browned and cooked through.
- Allow it to cool for a few minutes, then slice and serve.