Since I have managed to toss off my holiday blues (thank you for all your kind words, prayers, hugs. and positive vibes!) I am beginning to plan our Christmas dinner. I’ve not decided on turkey or a lovely beef roast. But I have already decided on the side dishes and as usual, this includes Yorkshire or, Batter Pudding.
When visiting England several times and years ago, I fell in love with this deceptively simple dish. Made with beef drippings and served hot alongside the meat with gravy ladled on, it is a savory dish that makes the meal, just in its humble simplicity. I’m happy just with the pudding and the gravy! If I serve with poultry or pork, I add a nice pinch of either rosemary, thyme, or sage. Not a lot, just a tad to enhance the compatibility to the meat. I rarely eat meat but will do a few times of year. This is a good dish with roasted vegetables as well as meat/poultry/pork.
Leftover puddings with melted butter and a tart orange marmalade is an excellent breakfast or, a smear of butter for a good out of hand gaming snack. This is not a snobbish dish. It is friendly and a combination of “hey y’all, Ay up, and hello love”. If you haven’t tried Yorkshire pudding, do give it a go. You may find it as easy and useful as a potato dish and may even end up using it as often.
Yorkshire Pudding
Ingredients
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup pan drippings from roast prime rib of beef (or duck fat, vegetable shortening, vegetable oil)
NOTE: If I get a roast from the butcher that has a lot of external fat, I trim that off, render and clarify and use with this recipe. If I don’t have quite enough, I add some melted vegetable shortening. This can cook while your meat is resting. I let my batter rest about 15 minutes, but you really don’t have to. DO NOT USE a glass baking dish – the batter going into smoking hot grease can cause the baking dish to explode.
Directions
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Sift together the flour and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, beat together the eggs and milk until light and foamy. Stir in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Pour the drippings into a 9-inch pie pan, cast iron skillet, or square baking dish or into muffin tin holes. Put the pan in oven and get the drippings smoking hot. Carefully take the pan out of the oven and pour in the batter. Put the pan back in oven and cook until puffed and dry, 15 to 20 minutes. Serves 6 (or more puddings if you use a muffin tin)
from Nigella’s How to Eat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Contrast this pudding with those cooked in bakeware of tin and glass. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
kanzen sakura 
Dec 07, 2013 @ 02:28:28
I clicked on the wrong link and opened the Yorkshire pudding page and not the award page so I accidentally liked this before I read it but now I am going to read it and learn how to make Yorkshire pudding which I have never had haha
Dec 07, 2013 @ 04:00:13
We’re fans of Yorkshire pudding, I sometimes get one when they have them! The male biped’s father was from Yorkshire.
Dec 07, 2013 @ 17:53:24
That’s why I added the ay-up. I figured somebody out there had to be from Yorkshire! They are a nice treat.
Dec 10, 2013 @ 12:22:43
Great stuff! Mrs. Emeron is, with my help, becoming quite sentimental about (Ghastly, she says) English cooking. (Her derisive take on her own heritage always struck me as a bit unfair; but, to be fair myself, she was, as a child, made to eat a number of things that would arguably seem ghastly to any child : )
On another subject, I recently made a variant of “Indian Beans,” which is a south-western delicacy, so I am told, but one which I did not experience while growing up in the south-west. This one came in Mrs. Emeron’s Maternal Grandmother’s recipe box, which recipe I will provide if you are curious. The story I wish to here relate is one of side dishes, however; and to this dish, there is no better than some variety of cornbread. Now… Imagine this scenario: You have everything you need in order to make virtually any variety of cornbread–everything, that is, except cornmeal. You have no desire to run out at 3am and buy some….
Well, what I ended up doing is this: I did have some coarse-ground bulgar wheat, so I adapted a recipe substituting bulgar for cornmeal. I pushed the sweetness as well as the saltiness up by double adding brown sugar for good measure. What resulted was delicious and everyone who tried it thought it was, in fact cornbread. Caveat: Don’t bite down hard or you may break a tooth–it is very like the kind of cornbread made from coarse polenta. I made another batch this morning first soaking the bulgar 1/1 in hot water, but in all-in-all, the crunchy, tooth-breaky version was more enjoyed, and of course, which recipe I will provide if you have any interest. Still, this bulgar substitution would doubtless work well enough with any cornbread recipe.
Dec 10, 2013 @ 13:59:32
I am so very glad to hear from you and to hear you sounding chipper. Of course I would love the recipe! and the Indian Beans too. Southwest Indian cooking is different from atlantic coast Indian cooking – except for fry bread. that seems to be the same from east to west coasts, north to south borders. Your story reminds me of when my dear grandmother Ninny one time had the necessity of cornbread – had no cornmeal. She ended up using grits (very very very coarse cornmeal, in a way). the result was wonderful….and potentially toothbreaking but she fixed that. I was given things like Brussels sprouts, hominy, and liver pudding. perverse child that I was, I loved them and still do.
I have also made Yorkshire pudding from cornmeal/flour mix with some minced onion and sugar.. Came out like a puffy husbpuppy. It was a hit. I do like the accidents and stories of food. 🙂
Dec 10, 2013 @ 15:33:00
Here is my first offering:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-corn-bread-2/detail.aspx?scale=18&ismetric=0
That should be a doubled recipe; therefore use a 9 x 13 pan, add 1/2 cup brown sugar and an extra tsp. salt and of course, substitute bulgar wheat for cornmeal.
If I can find something close to Grandma Emeron’s Indian beans, I will link them with alterations, otherwise, I or Mrs Emeron will copy out the recipe from Grandma’s box.
Dec 10, 2013 @ 15:40:35
Thank you! I have gone to the link and viewed. My father used to make corn cakes for us to have with fried fish – we didn’t always want the “cakey” cornbread. He never measured. but they always turned out the same – yellow cornmeal, salt, baking powder (smidge), buttermilk, egg – enough liquid so like pancakes. he’d drop a big serving spoon into hot fat in an iron skillet – usually ended up 5 per skillet, then when bubbly, he’d turn and let get brown on the otherside. Lacey crispy edges, moist interior, nicely browned – all stacked up on a plate. We’d smear with butter and hold in one paw while forking down fish and cole slaw with the other. I almost choked on a bone once as a little ‘un so after that, fish were always done as a filet. I miss his cooking a lot – especially his fried chicken.
Dec 10, 2013 @ 15:45:12
Sounds good! Reminds me of yet another cornbread story!! But… I will save that one for another time!!!
Dec 10, 2013 @ 19:04:39
I will wait. There was a kid in my old neighborhood with weird yellow hair. We called him Cornbread!
Dec 10, 2013 @ 23:45:52
Did he have to fight high school thugs because of his hair as does Ichigo Kurosaki?
Dec 11, 2013 @ 06:27:04
He Was the high school thug!
Dec 11, 2013 @ 12:20:39
Hahaha!
Dec 11, 2013 @ 12:20:46
I see!!!
Dec 10, 2013 @ 15:35:09
Re grits: I wish I had thought of that. I am sure I have some of them as well….
Dec 12, 2013 @ 13:43:11
Gotta have yorkshires! 😀
Dec 12, 2013 @ 14:47:50
You got that right! i love them. People give British food a bad rep – yeah, sometimes, but then you have something like that that is just so simple and homey and good. if there are no “puds” as my hubby says during the holidays, you may as well just throw out the roast.
Dec 14, 2013 @ 10:20:15
I’m from Yorkshire. 😉
Dec 14, 2013 @ 11:15:04
Wow!!!! That is so cool. Did I come with the “ay up”? > Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 15:20:16 +0000 > To: thspencer51@hotmail.com >
Dec 14, 2013 @ 16:40:14
Aye! 😉