August 28, 2020Mr. Wapojif

Yorkshire Pudding: Ee Ba Gum, These Are Tasty

Two Yorkshire puddings with fire in the background
Splendid!

So, ee ba gum, it’s time to have a look at this iconic British food thing. A comfort food of much heft, it’s a pastry/pudding delight. Indeed.

What’s a Yorkshire Pudding?

It’s a side dish here in England that you make from egg batter, flour, and milk. You’d normally serve it with a classic roast dinner on a Sunday.

Alone, Yorkshire puddings are pretty dry. However, complementing them with gravy turns them into a mighty comfort food.

You can also turn them into a meal of if you stick sausages inside one of them. That recipe is called toad in the hole and is another English food tradition.

Gravy is crucial throughout all of this, as it helps to keep everything “moist” and all that. Rather than dry and unappetising.

How Do You Cook a Yorkshire Pudding?

It actually only takes about 25 minutes or so, they’re rather easy to do. You just need:

  • 140 grams of plain flour
  • 4 eggs
  • 200ml milk
  • Your oil of choice (e.g. olive oil).

Gorgeous hunk of manliness Jamie Oliver provides a demonstration higher above about how to cobble that lot together. Pukka.

A History of Yorkshire Puddings

Northern cooks took advantage of fat dripping from pans to cook batter. They realised this could be used to fashion batter and puddings.

And so, the recipe began popping up as “dripping pudding” around 1797.

In fact, a recipe appeared in the mass contribution lifestyle book The whole duty of a woman: or, an infallible guide to the fair sex. Containing, rules, directions, and observations, for their conduct and behaviour of life, as virgins, wives, or widows.

Catchy title, huh? Pretty sure that 700 page epic won’t have any outdated sexist rambling in it at all. Know your place, women. You hear?!

A decade later, the recipe finally began appearing in other cookbooks as the classic Yorkshire pudding deal. A chef called Hannah Glasse renamed it that.

It was used as a filling starter in its early days. One cheap to put together to try and take the edge of folks’ appetites. Then they wouldn’t eat so much during the main meal.

However, these days it’s very much a main course side dish. Typically you’ll have two of them on your plate with the roast dinner stuff—with lashings of gravy.

England is very big on comfort food. And the Yorkshire pudding embodies that to perfection.

Cheap, cheerful, and easy to stuff into your face. Reet proper.

14 comments

  1. The wisdom that flows from the pages of Mr. Wajopif is remarkable. ( see my remarks) Apparently plagiarists, we’ve we’ve been singing “Does Your “Belly” Hang Low” since I was a wee one. We laughed mightily and often sat in the hallway having been tossed from the classroom. Thank you for links to The Meaning of Life.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  3. That was a fun video to watch! My mom used to make Yorkshire Puddings.
    However, with all the pandemic weight gain, I’m going a different route. I bought a hula-hoop!!!!
    I got it to go around 20 times today! I’m sure this is the answer to all my woes!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

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