England: Yorkshire Pudding

The word pudding has been through a lot of changes since it first wandered into the English language, probably from the Old French, in the last millennium. Initially it was a noun that simply meant something's guts. ("Puddings" was the usual form.) Then it started to be used for the dishes that smart cooks used those guts for, once they'd been processed -- meaning sausages of various kinds. (Haggis would be one of the most robust of these: the black pudding of Irish, British and other European traditions would be another sort.) Then, around the 1600's or so, the word's use began to extend to any soft food that might be cooked like a pudding, whether there was a gut casing involved or not, or had flour or grain mixed in with it so that you could have made a pudding of it if you felt like it. Mealy puddings, batter puddings, floury puddings, marrow puddings, suet puddings and so forth began appearing all over the landscape: and by the 1700's fruit and numerous other sweet ingredients crept into the equation as well.

On the western side of the Atlantic, these gradually pushed the savory end of the pudding-flavor spectrum almost completely out of the picture, to the point where just about the only native North American usage of the word "pudding" is now either for a sweet powdered dessert preparation that gets mixed with milk, or something bought and eaten straight from the dairy case. But in Europe, and particularly in England and Ireland, the original usages of the word are still very much with us, confusing the tourists and delighting the locals as they have for generations.

The Yorkshire pudding is a member of the larger class of batter puddings. Originally these were usually boiled in a pudding cloth (the traditional English Christmas pudding is a distant relative). But later on, as home roasting of meats became more popular, batter puddings began to be baked underneath the vertical rotating spit or "jack" on which the beef was roasted. Later on, when the jack fell out of favor, Yorkshire puddings started to simply be baked in the same pan that caught the fat and juices ("dripping") from the roast in the oven. (The roast was removed first.)

These days most people seem to prefer baking them separately, either in individual sizes (as in the picture above) or as a single big pud. Either way, Yorkshire puddings are a terrific accompaniment to any roast meat. Traditionally they were meant to fill up the dinner guests a bit before the meat course made its appearance on the table -- the idea being that there would be more meat to go around, and more left over for other uses later in the week, if everybody didn't just gorge themselves on the protein, but had the edge taken off first by a nice big plateful of carbs and yummy gravy.

There is a lot of unnecessary terror surrounding the Yorkshire pudding, mostly based on the fear that it won't rise properly. Yes, there are a few tricks to it, but they're not complicated. They boil down to the following:

• Work with ingredients at room temperature.

• Beat the batter well and let it rest before you bake it. The way the batter rises has to do with how much air you beat into it and also how well the gluten in the flour is developed (the gluten helps trap the air in the batter and keep it in place during the baking process).
• Preheat the oven and make sure it's really hot to start with.
• Use the heaviest-gauge container you can for the size of pudding you want. Cast iron is one of the best materials to work with: if you're making a big Yorkshire pudding, doing it in a cast iron frying pan produces outstanding results (and if the pan is properly seasoned, your pud will be that much less likely to stick). Making small puds on a regular basis? Get a really heavy muffin pan.
• When you're almost ready to go: preheat the fat in the baking pan, whatever fat you're using, and preheat it really hot. Note: there are some odd recipes out there recommending that you use extra-virgin olive oil. This seems both contrary to the essential character of the dish -- which is northern -- and a mistake in terms of cooking physics: extra-virgin doesn't resist high heats well and would probably go acrid in the cooking process. Use plain vegetable oil if you don't want to go the beef-dripping route.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and further directions.

For the pudding:

• 4 ounces / 100g plain flour

• 1 egg
• 10 fluid ounces / 300 ml milk
• Pinch of salt
• To bake: 2 tablespoons beef fat / dripping or vegetable oil

Allow all ingredients to come to room temperature. Stir the salt and flour together in a mixing bowl. In another bowl or a deep jug, whisk together (or beat with an egg beater, or electric stick mixer) the egg and milk until very light and frothy. Mix with the flour / salt mixture and beat well for at least several minutes. Make sure that this batter is thin: thick batters will produce a pudding that won't rise well. If your batter seems too thick, add a little milk and beat again.

Preheat the oven to 425F / 220C. Position one of the oven racks near the top of the oven. Then choose your baking pan: either a 12 x 8-inch single baking pan -- the heavier the better, and as mentioned above, a cast iron frying pan works really well for this -- or a cupcake pan / popover pan, again, the heavier the better.

Grease the individual pans or large baking pan very well with the fat: put into the oven to preheat. When the oil or fat is so hot it begins to smoke, pull it out and pour the batter into the container/s. (Some cooks like to put the pan on a live stovetop burner to keep it from losing heat.) Then put straight back into the oven on the top rack.

Bake for 40 minutes until well risen, crisp and golden. Individual puddings may need to be removed a little sooner than a single big one: keep an eye on them.

Note for convection / fan oven users: Turn off the fan, if you're able to. It's likely to make your puddings rise crookedly. Also, make sure you lower the baking temperatures a little from those recommended here, as fan ovens tend to run hotter than conventional ones.