There are some words that stop you in your tracks. Words that are perfectly innocent, deeply British, and completely misunderstood by a social media algorithm that clearly never grew up eating school dinners in the Midlands.
I won't say the word here. You know what it is. And if you're British, you'll also know exactly what I'm talking about. Tender pork meatballs enriched with liver, seasoned with herbs and sage, baked low and slow in a rich onion gravy and served with mash and peas. That liver gives them a depth of flavour you simply can't replicate any other way. Earthy, rich and deeply savoury. Pure, humble, working-class comfort food that deserves far better than a Facebook ban.
This recipe didn't make it into the cookbook. Not because it isn't brilliant, it absolutely is, but because every time I tried to talk about it online, I ended up in social media jail. Three times. Three. The algorithm has no respect for British culinary heritage whatsoever.
So here it is, finally getting the platform it deserves. On my blog. Where nobody can stop me.
This dish originates from the Midlands and Wales, where it was a thrifty staple of butcher's counters and pub menus. A way of using every part of the animal and making something extraordinary from humble ingredients. If you grew up eating these with mash and mushy peas on a Friday night, this recipe will bring it all back. And if you've never tried them, you're in for a very good evening.

​Want to save this recipe? Right click and Print, or screenshot it for later.

This recipe didn't make it into the cookbook, but 260 pages of the British comfort food we grew up with did. Order your copy HERE or find it on Amazon.

There are some foods that live in your memory long after the last bite. Not because they were fancy, not because they were complicated, but because they were just right. Chocolate Concrete and Pink Custard is one of those foods.

If you went to school in Britain any time from the 1960s onwards, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. That dense, dark slab of chocolatey biscuit, dusted with a little caster sugar, sitting in a pool of the most extraordinary pink custard. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't supposed to be. But it was absolutely, unequivocally, lush.
The concrete part of the name was earned honestly. Depending on how long it had been in the oven, you were either getting something that melted on your tongue like the best shortbread you'd ever tasted, or something that could quite possibly take a tooth with it. It was a lottery, and we queued up for it anyway.

And the pink custard. Oh, the pink custard. It held mythic status in the school dinner hall, that is, until someone let slip that it was actually strawberry blancmange that hadn't been set properly. Reputation shattered. Didn't stop us loving it.
I've included this recipe in my cookbook because it deserves to live on. It's the kind of pudding that makes grown adults go quiet for a moment when they take the first bite. That particular silence that means I remember this.
The good news is it couldn't be simpler to make. Five ingredients for the crunch, a handful more for the custard, and about twenty minutes in the oven. It's proper old school comfort food, and there's not a thing wrong with that.

Tip into your prepared tin and press down firmly with your hands until level.
Bake for about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and mark out slices with a knife while still warm. Sprinkle the top with a little caster sugar.

​PINK CUSTARD
5 tbsp cornflour
3 tbsp sugar
A few drops of pink food colouring
½ tsp strawberry extract or essence
500ml milk
METHOD
Combine the cornflour, sugar, food colouring and strawberry extract in a bowl. Add a little of the milk and whisk to a smooth paste.
Heat the remaining milk in a saucepan until hot but not boiling. Pour into the pink paste, whisk to combine, then return everything to the saucepan.
Keep whisking over a medium heat until the mixture just comes to the boil and thickens to a lovely custard consistency. It won't take long. Remove from the heat and pour straight over your chocolate concrete.

This recipe is taken from my cookbook, Pork Pies & the Perfect Pickle, 260 pages of the British comfort food we grew up with, now available to order online and on Amazon.
Order your copy here