Sunday dinners for the Retro Hanna Bettys (or was it OWLS?) was most likely to consist of fried chicken and mashed potatoes (and since it was during 60's and 70's that I had Sunday dinners at the childhood home, the potatoes came dry, out of a tin). Our Mississippi born mother taught us to fry chicken at quite a young age, but before we could fry it, we had to first cut it up. Yeah, our mom only bought whole chickens...and we needed two or three for dinner. Betty Marcy and I were pretty darn fast at cutting up the chicken - but it was a toss-up which chore was worse...cutting the chicken or cooking the chicken. Cutting was grosser, but quicker. Frying the chicken involved lots of splattering grease - and the potential for getting burned.
In The Venerable Neels' England, Sunday dinners are often composed of either a "joint" (which makes me think of marijauna) or Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. I remember reading about Yorkshire Puddings back in the early 1980's in James Herriot's books (I loved loved loved those books...and the BBC adaptations of them). I had no idea what Yorkshire pudding was...just that Sunday dinners in Yorkshire consisted of Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. I knew it wasn't American style pudding...after all, I did grow up watching various versions of Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol" in which a pudding was steamed and usually ball shaped, but other than that - not a clue. Not having access to the inter-webs back in the day, I just let my curiosity about them dwindle.Enter Betty. Enter Google. Nowadays if I wonder about something, like, say, Yorkshire pudding, I'm only a Google Search away from an answer. And a selection of recipes. The one I chose to try was found on About.com.
Yorkshire Puddings
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients:
•4 large, fresh eggs, measured in a jug
•Equal quantity of milk to eggs
•Equal quantity of all purpose/plain flour to eggs
•Pinch of salt
•2 tbsp lard, beef dripping or vegetable oil
Preparation:
Serves 6
•Heat the oven to the highest temperature possible, however, do not exceed 450F/230C or the fat may burn.
•Pour the eggs and milk into a large mixing bowl and add the pinch of salt. Whisk thoroughly with an electric hand beater or hand whisk. Leave to stand for 10 minutes.
•Gradually sieve the same volume of flour (as the eggs) into the milk and egg mixture, again using an electric hand beater or hand-whisk to create a lump free batter resembling thick cream, if there are any lumps pass the batter through a fine sieve.
•Leave the batter to rest in the kitchen for a minimum of 30 minutes, longer if possible - up to several hours.
•Place a pea-sized piece of lard, dripping or ½tsp vegetable oil in a Yorkshire pudding tin (4 x 2"/5cm hole tin) or 12-hole muffin tin and heat in the oven until the fat is smoking. Give the batter another good whisk adding 2 tbsps of cold water and fill a third of each section of the tin with batter and return quickly to the oven.
•Leave to cook until golden brown approx 20 minutes. Repeat the last step again until all the batter is used up.
Serving Yorkshire Pudding
•In Yorkshire serving the pudding is traditionally with gravy as a starter dish followed by the meat and vegetables. More often smaller puddings cooked in muffin tins are served alongside meat and vegetables.
•Yorkshire pudding isn’t reserved only for Sunday lunch. A large pudding filled with a meaty stew or chili is a dish in its own right.
•Cold left-over Yorkshire Puddings make a lovely snack with a little jam or honey.
•Yorkshire Puddings do not reheat well, becoming brittle and dry.
I just followed the recipe - and they turned out fine (as far as I know...). I used a muffin tin, and this recipe was just right for a dozen puddings. Everyone in my family ate them (even my picky eater) - and we like them. I don't think I would serve them with gravy again...not that they were bad that way, it's just that they remind me an awful lot of Dutch Babies...which are usually served with a sweet topping (powdered sugar, syrup, fruit, etc...) in my house. If I was to serve the Yorkshire puddings as a savoury dish, I might stuff them with some kind of filling like the recipes suggests.
You can find reference to Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding in Fate is Remarkable and Always and Forever.
Ingredients:
•4 large, fresh eggs, measured in a jug
•Equal quantity of milk to eggs
•Equal quantity of all purpose/plain flour to eggs
•Pinch of salt
•2 tbsp lard, beef dripping or vegetable oil
Preparation:
Serves 6
•Heat the oven to the highest temperature possible, however, do not exceed 450F/230C or the fat may burn.
•Pour the eggs and milk into a large mixing bowl and add the pinch of salt. Whisk thoroughly with an electric hand beater or hand whisk. Leave to stand for 10 minutes.
•Gradually sieve the same volume of flour (as the eggs) into the milk and egg mixture, again using an electric hand beater or hand-whisk to create a lump free batter resembling thick cream, if there are any lumps pass the batter through a fine sieve.
•Leave the batter to rest in the kitchen for a minimum of 30 minutes, longer if possible - up to several hours.
•Place a pea-sized piece of lard, dripping or ½tsp vegetable oil in a Yorkshire pudding tin (4 x 2"/5cm hole tin) or 12-hole muffin tin and heat in the oven until the fat is smoking. Give the batter another good whisk adding 2 tbsps of cold water and fill a third of each section of the tin with batter and return quickly to the oven.
•Leave to cook until golden brown approx 20 minutes. Repeat the last step again until all the batter is used up.
Serving Yorkshire Pudding
•In Yorkshire serving the pudding is traditionally with gravy as a starter dish followed by the meat and vegetables. More often smaller puddings cooked in muffin tins are served alongside meat and vegetables.
•Yorkshire pudding isn’t reserved only for Sunday lunch. A large pudding filled with a meaty stew or chili is a dish in its own right.
•Cold left-over Yorkshire Puddings make a lovely snack with a little jam or honey.
•Yorkshire Puddings do not reheat well, becoming brittle and dry.
I just followed the recipe - and they turned out fine (as far as I know...). I used a muffin tin, and this recipe was just right for a dozen puddings. Everyone in my family ate them (even my picky eater) - and we like them. I don't think I would serve them with gravy again...not that they were bad that way, it's just that they remind me an awful lot of Dutch Babies...which are usually served with a sweet topping (powdered sugar, syrup, fruit, etc...) in my house. If I was to serve the Yorkshire puddings as a savoury dish, I might stuff them with some kind of filling like the recipes suggests.
You can find reference to Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding in Fate is Remarkable and Always and Forever.
I want to try this. They look uh-dor-able. We make roasts often enough. Still, I'm with you--If I'm making a Dutch Baby, I want a Dutch Baby.
ReplyDelete(Thinking how not to mention that Dutch Baby makes me think of Dutch Boy and Dutch Cap -- and if you don't know what the latter is, I'm not going to explain it in public comments.)
ReplyDeleteI love love love Yorkshire pud. I have to say I like it better with gravy. Unfortunately, the "guys" don't like roast beef that much, so very few opportunities to make it.
Also, you should try Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding on Epicurious.com -- it won't be mentioned in a Betty Neels book, but if you tried it, you would know she *would* have eaten it if it had been on offer. It's that good.
Betty Magdalen: I'm giggling over the Dutch Cap...of course I had to google it.
ReplyDeleteAs did I. Hi-arious.
ReplyDeleteMore on the subject of Yorkshire Pudding, Popovers, Dutch Baby Pancake with links to recipes elsewhere on this blog hidden among Betty van den Betsy’s THE HUGE ROSES.
ReplyDelete