Recipe XLVI - Yorkshire Pudding (with Roast Beef and Roast Potatoes)

One of the single most delicious things only an oven can make is the simple Yorkshire pudding. It is one of the iconic objects of traditional English cooking. It goes so well with roast beef, it is almost as if the cow was created in case Humankind should invent the Yorkshire pudding.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
280ml milk
120g flour
some animal fat or lard (for the bottom of the moulds)
a pinch of salt

Instructions:
Put the flour and salt into a large bowl, crack the eggs into it and pour in the milk. Stir in the ingredients until it makes a consistent, runny batter, not dissimilar to pancake mix. Use an electric whisk if necessary.



Once the batter is ready, put it into the fridge for between 1 hour and 10 hours. The air needs to leave it before it is ready for baking. Before you cook, switch on the oven to 220°C. In your baking mould, put the fat, making sure you cover all sides. I used simple butter. Even ordinary oil from a bottle will do.



Put it into the oven. When piping hot, take it out and pour in your batter.



In the end, there should be roughly the same amount per mould.



Put it back into the oven for between 20 and 25 minutes, or until it has risen. I unfortunately left mine in for a couple of minutes too long and they ended up a little too well-cooked, but they were still tasty.



I roasted them before I put the beef into the oven. So, now turn your oven down to 160°C.

To make the roast beef:
Ingredients:
1 piece of roasting beef
2 spoonfuls of Colman's English mustard
10 peppercorns
1 onion
2 carrots
Salt to taste
6 potatoes

Instructions:
Put the beef on a preparation plate. Cut off the various pieces of fat and cover it in salt. With a spoon, spread the mustard evenly over the beef, then with the crushed peppercorns do the same. Put the beef into a frying pan and seal the outside. Put it to one side.



Cut the two carrots and the onion into slices, rings or lengths. Put them into the cold baking tray, in the oil you will roast the beef with.



Put the beef on top and place it into the oven. As it's on a low heat, it can stay there for a while if necessary.
In a saucepan, boil the potatoes for ten minutes. Save some of the water for making the gravy.



Remove the water and add them to the roast beef now, placing some garlic on top of the beef. They should stay here for a minimum of 20 minutes, with no real maximum. Five minutes before you want to remove it, turn the oven up to 200°C to crisp up the potatoes. Serve up the food.



Using the potato water and the juice at the bottom of the baking tray, make some gravy. The photo above shows the meal before the gravy went on.
A nice bottle of Bordeaux just under room temperature would go nicely right now.

Recipe VIII - Toad in the Hole

Sorry I didn't put out a recipe last week: I'm making up for it this week with a good old British recipe for you. I made it on Friday and thought it too good to omit!

Ingredients:
6 Sausages (Cumberland or Lincolnshire are excellent but I used German Bratwurst and they were quite tasty)
Flour (250-350g, depending on how thick you want the batter)
Milk (250-350ml, depending on how thick you want the batter)
3 eggs
Salt & pepper

Recipe:
Fry the sausages on a low heat in a pan with butter or sunflower oil until the outsides are lightly browned.
Whilst this is going on, heat up your oven to 200°C and put a large enough baking tray in it.
Put the flour into a bowl, pour the salt, pepper milk and eggs on top and beat it all together until it forms a consistency a little less fluid than pancake mix.
Pour the oil from the frying pan into a baking tray and arrange your sausages in a row with a gap between.
Pour the batter on top.
Put the whole thing in the oven for about 40-45 minutes until risen and golden brown.
As this is quite a heavy dish, serve with onion gravy and a few steamed vegetables (broccoli, for instance), or like me, a green salad with tomatoes and home-made vinaigrette (see the photo below).
Enjoy!