Mom's signature dish

Every great chef has a signature dish, right? Well my Mom was no different. I have her recipe passed down to me and this is how it goes.

"Take a pound of fry with kel. Put the kel in a dish of warm water to soak. Take the fry and boil it for about half an hour with an onion. Put it through the mincer into a bowl.

Soak enough bread until soft, squeeze it out into a nut and add to the bowl. Add sage and pennyroyal if you have it, with lots of salt and pepper. Add enough of the cooking water to make it stick together. Cut the kel into squares, wrap handfuls of the mix in the kel and put in a roasting tin. Pour the cooking water round the faggots and put the lid on the tin. Roast for 30 - 45 mins in a slow to medium oven. Serve with mushy pays, gravy and crusty bread."

OK let's translate!

You need a pound of mixed offal - liver and heart - from a pig. Ask the butcher to give you the diaphragm too. Not the lights (lungs), they make the mix bitter.

You also need about half a pound of breadcrumbs, made from stale white bread. If  you haven't made the bread into crumbs, don't worry: soak the bread until it's soft, then squeeze the excess water out. The bread will form a ball in your hands..

Put the diaphragm into soak in warm water.  This makes it easier to handle.

Now boil the offal with a quartered onion for about half an hour. Take the offal and onion out and pass them through a food mincer. (A food processor will do but be careful, you want chunks not paste.) Add the breadcrumbs, a pinch of dried sage and thyme, quite a lot of salt and pepper, and enough of the cooking water to make the mix bind together. Take handfuls of the mix and form into balls. Cut the kel into squares large enough to wrap round the balls and wrap each ball. Put the balls into a roasting tin with a lid, and pour the rest of the cooking water round them. Put the lid on and roast at about Gas 4/180 deg C for 30 - 45 mins.

Traditionally you serve faggots with mushy peas, which come from a tin these days but if you get dried peas, follow the instructions on the packet. Turn the cooking liquor into gravy with gravy granules (if you must!).

This food is the nectar of the gods. It has life-giving properties. When my Nan was run over by a car, she wouldn't eat for weeks and we thought we were losing her, but Mom's home made faggots went down a treat and she lived for another 7 years.

So let's hear it for the Black Country's own FAGGOTS AND PAYS!