# Winter comfort food . . . Welsh *******



## hubuk (Oct 8, 2001)

I can still remember, when I was six or seven years old, travelling down to Ponterdawe in South Wales for the weekend to see my Grandmother. We would arrive just in time for lunch on a Saturday. She had a Bullmastiff dog called Gellert. The problem was she had always fed him titbits from the table - a big mistake as this causes the dog to drool all the time.

In those days all little boys used to wear shorts!

Lunch would always be home made ******* with peas, all smothered in Bovril gravy with slabs of fresh white bread, thick with real butter. Of course, Gellert would take up station under the table, usually around my legs . . . but the ******* were great.

This is the recipe for ******* from back then, real comfort food, which can be enjoyed just as much today as it was then . . . and it is a really easy, low budget meal to prepare.

You will either need a mincer or an electric mixer to do the preparation. I always cook my ******* ahead and then warm them up when I wish to eat them. This allows the flavours to intensify and makes the ******* richer.

http://www.hub-uk.com/images018/*******-on-white-sm2.jpg

*Ingredients *


> 1 lb (455 g) lambs liver
> 1/4 lb (115 g) onions
> 6 ozs (170 g) white bread crumbs
> 4 tsp dried sage
> ...


*Method*

Make your bread crumbs by putting the dried bread in the mixer on a high setting until you have fine bread crumbs. .

Put bread crumbs in large mixing bowl. .

Chop onions in the mixer and add to the mixing bowl, this can be as fine or as coarse to suit your own tastes. .

Chop the liver in the mixer and add to the mixing bowl, this can be as fine or as coarse to suit your own tastes. .

Add the sage and mix thoroughly. .

Shape the mixture into small balls (should make 8 to 10). .

Place in a greased ovenproof dish or tin. .

Put a small knob of butter on each ******. .

Make stock with OXO (beef) cube and water and pour around the *******. .

Cover with foil and bake in a preheated oven (180°C / 350°F / Gas Mark 4) for fifteen minutes. .

Remove foil and cook for further fifteen minutes. .

Remove ******* and when cool cover and keep in the fridge until required.
*To serve: *

To reheat place the required number of ******* in a saucepan with beef stock (OXO or preferably Bovril) two-thirds of the way up the *******. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. .

Thicken stock to make a gravy and pour over. .

Serve with garden peas (or mushy peas) and thick slices of freshly buttered bread.
*Makes 8 - 10*


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## notoriouslyken (Sep 27, 2006)

This topic made me laugh. Food looks good though


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## ashii (Nov 19, 2006)

oh my....
that will get your stomach a turn'in i have to try it! 
might kill me tho... but oh well


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## hubuk (Oct 8, 2001)

If you like pate then you are going to like *******. 

This is top class comfort food. I have all the ingredients in the house ready to make another batch in the next 24 hours. Mmmmm!


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## mezzaluna (Aug 29, 2000)

As others probably are, I'm curious about the origin of the name for this dish. Being that they're a Welsh dish the English translation probably won't do(****** = bundle; a bundle of sticks; to join fabric pieces with a certain type of stitchery; and the colloquial definition I'll leave to Wikipedia). As I visited Wales in summer I didn't get to try this dish: http://www.welshholidaycottages.com/food/welsh-food.htm

Thanks for starting this thread, Hub.


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## jock (Dec 4, 2001)

HubUK, in case you aren't clued in to this, in the US "******" or "***" are somewhat derogatory terms used to describe a gay man.

Jock


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## hubuk (Oct 8, 2001)

The word ****** has the same meaning in the UK although it has fallen into disuse. It is really a bit like the word gay which we no longer use to describe someone who is happy. Who starts these things.

In the UK a *** has two meanings:

a cigarette

"***" was a term used for a junior boy who acted as a servant for a senior boy at British public schools.
I had to do that last one in my school days!

The various meanings are found on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(epithet)


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## jacaranda (Sep 28, 2006)

Traditionally Welsh ******* were wrapped in caul fat - identical to the South African meat dish called _skilpadjes_, or "little tortoises" (because the wrapped meatballs look like... er... little tortoises. Grilled little tortoises.).

There was extensive Italian immigration to Wales from the early 19th century onwards - which is why there are so many Italian cafes and ice-cream parlours in Swansea - and I guess aspects of the Italian immigrants' cuisine may to some degree have been adopted by the Welsh.

I reckon the name for the Welsh dish almost certainly comes from the Italian dish _fagottini_, which is minced meat wrapped in pasta: caul fat being substituted for pasta in Wales, where Italian immigrants would have been very hard-pressed to find durum wheat flour to make pasta. The name was even transliterated into the Welsh language as _ffagod_.

To be fair, its earliest use to describe a meatball is in the early 1850s - predating its use as a rude name for a gay man by some 70 years.


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## hubuk (Oct 8, 2001)

This is correct but since caul is almost impossible to get hold of these days it has been dropped from the recipe.

I don't know about the origins or the Italian name but I did receive an email some years ago about Fegatelli.

This was what the email said:


> What memories!
> 
> I used to eat ******* at my Nan's house too. My father was Welsh and I spent the first four years of my life in Caernafonshire. I never knew they were made of pig's livers! Nan and Tad died when I was very young, so I couldn't ask them, my mother didn't know (she is a Londoner of Spanish and German descent). Then we moved to Italy and I forgot about *******!
> 
> ...


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