Comforting Delia Smith boiled gammon is a gammon joint simmered with onions and carrots, topped with suet dumplings and served with parsley sauce, for 4. You simmer the joint for 75 minutes, then float 12 dumplings on top for 25 more. Plan on about 2¼ hours, almost all of it hands-off simmering.
The Delia Collection: Pork (2004) prints it on page 79 as Boiled Bacon with Dumplings and Parsley Sauce. Delia calls it an old English classic for a cold day, filling and warming.
Delia’s third How to Cook book (2001) boils a smoked collar too, with pease pudding in the same pot. Her website has it as Boiled Smoked Bacon with Pease Pudding. Both joints simmer gently in water with bay leaves, and both leave you a pot of stock to use afterwards.
Delia Smith Boiled Bacon with Dumplings
Boiled gammon cooked with bay, whole onions and carrots, with parsley dumplings on top and a sauce made from the stock.
4
servings20
minutes1
hour50
minutes750
kcalIngredients
- For the gammon:
1.15kg boneless gammon joint or collar of bacon
a few parsley stalks
4 smallish onions, peeled and left whole
2 large carrots, scraped and halved
- For the dumplings:
110g self-raising flour, plus a little for dusting
50g shredded suet
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
salt and freshly milled black pepper
- For the parsley sauce:
2 heaped tablespoons chopped parsley
25g butter
25g plain flour
150ml milk
275ml stock from cooking the gammon
1 teaspoon lemon juice
salt and freshly milled black pepper
Directions
- Simmer: Put the gammon in a 3.5 litre flameproof casserole with 2 litres of water, the bay leaves and the parsley stalks. Bring it to the boil, cover and simmer gently for 45 minutes.
- Vegetables: Add the whole onions and the halved carrots, cover again and simmer for 30 minutes more.
- Dough: Meanwhile, mix the flour, suet and chopped parsley in a bowl and season. Add 6 to 8 tablespoons of cold water to make a smooth, elastic dough. Divide it into 12 small dumplings on a lightly floured board.
- Stock: When the 30 minutes are up, ladle 275ml of the stock into a jug.
- Dumplings: Keep the pot simmering and drop the dumplings in around the gammon, letting them float rather than pushing them under. Cover and cook for 25 minutes.
- Sauce: Melt the butter in a small pan and stir in the flour until smooth. Add the milk a little at a time, then the stock, whisking with a balloon whisk after each addition. Stir in the chopped parsley and lemon juice, season, and let it barely simmer for 5 minutes.
- Serve: Slice the gammon and serve it with the onions, carrots and dumplings, and the sauce in a jug.
FAQs
Which joint should I use?
Use a 1.15kg boneless gammon joint or a collar of bacon for this boiled gammon, because Delia’s Pork book allows either. Her How to Cook book of 2001 adds that collar has more flavour than the leaner middle-cut gammon.
Should I soak the joint before boiling?
No, soaking matters less for a small gammon joint, because today’s cures are much milder, says her Complete Cookery Course (1983). If you want to be safe, soak the joint overnight in cold water.
Her other way is to cover it with cold water, boil it briefly and throw that water away before you start.
What can I do with the cooking stock?
The cooking stock from boiled gammon goes straight into the parsley sauce, 275ml of it. In her 2001 book she freezes leftover bacon stock for her London Particular pea soup, a green split pea soup.
How do I make the parsley sauce without stock?
Use her English parsley sauce from the 1998 How to Cook Book One, which takes 425ml of infused milk instead of stock. Delia calls it excellent with gammon. Her Complete Cookery Course (1992) also says parsley sauce is very good with boiled gammon.
That milk-only sauce is her English parsley sauce, the one she pours over baked cod.
Can I serve boiled gammon cold?
Yes, and Delia’s Pork book says any leftover gammon is very good cold. If you plan to eat the whole joint cold, the same 1983 Cookery Course gives it 15 minutes less cooking.
Then she leaves it to cool in its cooking water, so it stays extra moist. Her Cumberland sauce recipe goes with hot or cold gammon, she says.
Can I make it with pease pudding instead?
Yes, her pease pudding version is in the 2001 How to Cook Book Three, page 80. It uses a 1.35kg smoked collar of bacon for 6 people. The marrowfat peas are cooked, mashed with butter, egg and nutmeg, then tied in muslin and hung from the pan handle beside the bacon.
The joint then simmers gently for 1¼ hours, and a creamy onion and mustard sauce goes with it.
