Bacon badger
Serves: 6
Prep time: 30 minsTotal time: 
Recipe photograph by Laura Edwards
Bacon badger
Recipe by Ailsa Brown
Don’t worry, there’s no badger involved in our bacon badger recipe! This comforting dish, a bit like a savoury roly-poly, is native to Buckinghamshire and dates back hundreds of years
Serves: 6
Prep time: 30 minsTotal time: 
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Nutritional information (per serving)
Calories
503Kcal
Fat
29gr
Saturates
12gr
Carbs
45gr
Sugars
4gr
Fibre
4gr
Protein
15gr
Salt
2.2gr
Ailsa Brown
Ailsa is our former Food Assistant. She loves creating delicious food that can be whipped up without a fuss and is always thinking about her next meal. She has a thing for pickles, anchovies and Japanese street food.
See more of Ailsa Brown’s recipes
Ailsa Brown
Ailsa is our former Food Assistant. She loves creating delicious food that can be whipped up without a fuss and is always thinking about her next meal. She has a thing for pickles, anchovies and Japanese street food.
See more of Ailsa Brown’s recipes
Ingredients
- 100g beef suet
- 200g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
- ½ tbsp black mustard seeds
- 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 2 x 160g packs oak smoked bacon lardons
- 450g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
- 2 onions, finely chopped
- 2 tsp English mustard, plus extra to serve
- 2 sprigs of sage, leaves picked and finely chopped
- 10g parsley, finely chopped
- 1 medium egg, beaten
Step by step
- Preheat the oven to 200°C, 180°C fan, gas 6. Mix together the suet, flour and some seasoning. Slowly add about 100ml cold water – add more, if needed – to bring it into a ball of dough (it’s softer than most pastry). Wrap in clingfilm, chill, and make the filling.
- Heat a nonstick frying pan, fry the mustard seeds for 30 seconds until they pop. Tip into a large bowl. Heat the oil in the pan, add the lardons and fry until crispy, then set aside. Meanwhile, boil the potatoes for around 5 minutes until just tender, then drain and leave to steam dry. Remove the lardons from the pan with a slotted spoon and put in the bowl with the mustard seeds. Add the onions to the pan and cook until soft, about 5-10 minutes.
- Mix the mustard and herbs into the onions and add to the bowl. Gently stir in the potatoes; season with black pepper. Set to one side and leave to cool.
- Tip out the dough onto lightly floured baking paper, and roll out into a rectangle, about 40cm x 25cm. Put the filling down the centre, leaving a 2cm border at each end. Brush the edges with beaten egg and bring the 2 long edges together in the middle, overlapping them. Seal the ends, and fold over.
- Roll the badger onto a lined baking tray, with the seam on the bottom, and brush all over with more egg. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.
- Slice and serve hot with lots of mustard.
