Well almost. Here's a picture of dinner, Yorkshire pudding, cropped to show as little as possible of our dirty oven,
and maybe to give non-Brits something else to google.
Have a nice Sunday night, or whatever it is where you are.
SATURDAY SALUTE
2 hours ago
15 comments:
My Aunt Peggy made Yorkshire Pudding, pure bliss. She'd been a Londoner, before moving to Canada with Uncle Walt after the War.
Yay! And they're so easy, just flour, egg and milk, and a bit of fat or oil in the pan.
That's what Aunt Peggy always said, but I've never been able to take her simple ingredients and make anything as glorious. More soggy and sad.
Well, a very hot pan, beef, bacon, duck or goose fat rather than veg oil, and especially an extra egg in the mix can help achieve a better result. But it is an inexorable law of nature that while one can turn out pretty excellent puffy, light, crisp-at-the-edges yorkshires for one's own consumption, cooking them for anyone invited will inevitably result in sad slabs of heavy, barely comestible, farinaceous matter. If those guests are French and you're trying to demonstrate the merits of English cuisine this is even more certain to happen, but then it serves you right for being on such a hiding to nothing anyway.
What is a hiding to nothing? One of those inexplicable expressions.
you are a wealth of wonderful expressions and vocabulary. i will have to work hard to weave farinaceous into my conversation in a nonchalant manner. i salute you!
Times are out of joint. That you, a non-Yorkshire person (demonstrably not), should cook a classical pud, amid the alien corn. Perhaps employing alien corn
One question arises: how much gravy to go with those contours of gorgeousness? At least 250 cl. If there isn't a bit to throw away at the end then you didn't make enough.
Or did you eat it at the end of the meal smeared with jam? Tykes used to talk about that but I ever saw one of them do it. A myth to be promulgated by the egregious Nigella, lying on a mattress-size YP and doing something absolutely horrific with the gravy boat.
You know it really is quite easy to write about nothing.
If ever there was a "Now's the Time" to count our 3BT's, this must be it whether in France or GB...or wherever! I always enjoy yours and miss those of the above. So, thankyou, Lucy.
Lucy (and RR): My paternal grandfather was Yorkshire, his wife Lancashire (thus emulating the peace at the end of the Wars of the Roses). They had Yorkshire pud in two ways, the traditional, with gravy and also smeared with marmalade (but without the gravy).
I enjoy it as its own platter filled with a roast and gravy.
PC - not sure it was quite the right word there, but I suppose I rather meant sort of densely carbohydrate!
Robbie - Mm, it is for you! In fact you seem to be rather channelling Nigella there, with your 'contours of gorgeousness. But in fact it seems that the most nothingy posts are often the ones that promote the most chitchat, which after all is very much the point of blogging. There was adequate gravy, and some rather good beef (Aberdeen Angus,80%) chipolatas brought to us from Waitrose. My mum, who had never been near Yorkshire beyond a couple of caravanning holidays in the Dales, always made Yorkshire pud, sometimes we called it batter pud, and so popular was it with us that she often also used it as a standby sweet pud, with jam.
Anonymous - hello, and welcome, but I feel I know you well? It is a practice of gratitude, and as such, while it might seem lightweight, not always easy but still worthwhile.
Avus - yum. We rarely have roast beef, sometimes just the pud with gravy and a veg, sometimes with sausages, I used often to use these as toad-in-the-hole, but now we find we prefer them separately, they are crisper thus. We also had it in a very posh restaurant in Amsterdam! It was filled with pumpkin purée, which was OK but rather unnecessary, and served with duck or beef rib roast.
Your oven modesty reminds me that I was scrubbing my oven the night before we hosted our 14 y.o.'s sleepover party last Friday. I had agreed to bake some treats and knew that the oven needed the burnt butter removed or we would have a house full of smoke. So that's one of the presents she got for her 14th bday: a clean(er) oven.
I should have read your post yesterday, Sunday. Moselito would have been served Yorkshire pudding instead of potatoes, on the side of his humongous slab of beef roast.
I forgot to ask if 'our oven' means that you both get a turn to clean it? Our oven was always mine.
It's Nigella's reverse ageing process I find so fascinating...
Gosh, this post where I say (almost) nothing is a real crowd puller!
Nimble - I hope she appreciated it!
Ellena - astutely picked up. I said 'our' because I didn't want it to sound as though the kitchen was seen to be my domain, however, I'm afraid when it comes to cleaning it, it is; reconstruction only goes so far. However, Tom does not in fact use this oven very much at all, and since I don't clean it very much either, I don't feel too oppressed.
FB - in that you do not appear to be alone. Some suggest cosmetic surgery, others a kind of photoshopping that can now be applied to moving images. Hang on, I thought you didn't have telly! Do you do i-player for Nigella?!
I am wildly curious about Yorkshire pud. It looks similar to a Dutch baby, which I have made more than once. But I am curious about the beef gravy or whatever that complements it. I must try it though we seldom have roast beef so where must I get the sauce? Oh, me. What distress.
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