Giant Filled Yorkshire Pudding

Many years ago when I was at university I had a meal – probably with my then-boyfriend, or possibly my parents – in the pub opposite the back gate of college. Back then it was called the Bun Shop, but it seems to have changed hands (or name at least) as when I went back to Cambridge this year I saw it was now called the Cambridge Brew House. The meal really stuck in my mind because it was simple, based on something I really enjoyed – a Yorkshire pudding – but a way of serving it that I’d never come across before. Essentially, it was a whole roast dinner – in a Yorkshire pudding.

 

When I recently came across Aunt Bessie’s Giant Yorkshire Puddings in the supermarket I was reminded of this meal and decided to make my own. You can make your own Yorkshire but it needs to be quite deep with a flat base and high sides – so I thought I was better off using one of Aunt Bessie’s!

 

You can put anything in that you like, but it needs to be already cooked through as the Yorkshire only takes about ten minutes in a hot oven. It’s a really good way of using leftover meat from a roast dinner – you can even add any leftover roast potatoes or vegetables, and pour gravy over the top. Alternatively you could fry some chicken and bacon and make a white sauce.

 

 

Yorkshire Puddings - a Random Recipe and a Review

I've recently started taking part in Random Recipes, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen (one of my favourite blogs)- every month he asks us to pick a book and a recipe from it at random, no cheating allowed! This month he asked us to take the date of our birthday - in my case the 29th - and select that number book from our shelf. As I counted along my baking books, my Nigella collection, my cake decorating books I wondered what I would land upon... and it was the rather prosaic slimline volume, the Great Book of Yorkshire Pudding by Elaine Lemm. It wasn't that long ago that I made the filled Yorkshire puddings from this book so hoped I wouldn't land on the same page again... and guess which page I opened it at..... "leftover cooked Yorkshire puddings."

That was all very well, but to have some leftover, I needed to make some first! I followed the standard recipe from the front of the book, which I've tried before and found works really well: it's just 2 eggs, beaten in a measuring jug; an equal quantity of milk to eggs, (which was about 100ml) and an equal quantity of plain flour to milk. Mix well, and you're done!

Not one of my most exciting photos....

I decided this was a good opportunity to review a new product I recently found in the supermarket: Aunt Bessie's Homebake Yorkshire Pudding Mix. I've tried their ready made frozen Yorkshire puddings before, which I think are good, so I was interested to try this packet mix. It contains flour, dried egg, skimmed milk powder and a host of other things I don't recognise (propylene glycol esters of fatty acids, anyone?) and all you do is mix it with water.

I halved the quantity - I actually weighed the packet mix to make sure I used half - and while the packet said it makes 12, so I was expecting 6, I actually only managed to get four out of it.

I'm treating you to such exciting photos today... it will get better, I promise!

I was planning to get my boyfriend to do a blind taste test and see if he could tell the difference between my homemade Yorkshire puddings and the ones from the packet mix, but I was very surprised at how different they looked when they came out of the oven:

My homemade ones are on the left and the Aunt Bessie's are on the right. I wondered if maybe I hadn't cooked them for long enough - I can't remember if I followed exactly what I said on the packet- but they seemed properly cooked, they just hadn't risen as much. They were also a lot denser in texture, but they did taste nice. My boyfriend could tell which ones were my own though and we did prefer them!

I can see the benefit of having a packet mix like this in the cupboard as you only have to add water, but it's not hard to make Yorkshire puddings and I think I'll be sticking to my own recipe in future.

 We had these for Sunday lunch with roast beef and cauliflower cheese for me, and Cumberland sausages for my boyfriend.

Then luckily I did have some left over... so I could properly do my random recipe! The Great Book of Yorkshire Pudding has some really interesting stuff about the history of the dish and the different ways they are eaten, and some traditional recipes from the days of Mrs Beeton as well as some modern twists.

The page that I opened the book on suggested: "For the sweet-toothed try them simply with milk and sugar or fancy with apple sauce and cinnamon." Milk and sugar sounded weird - though this is the same mixture you make pancakes from, which I eat with lemon and sugar - so I decided to try the apple sauce option. In my haste to try it though I forgot the cinnamon! It was quite nice but I think I'll stick to having my Yorkshire puddings as a savoury dish with a Sunday roast.

A little bit random if you ask me... so it definitely lives up to the name Random Recipe! Dom, I hope I get a nice cake recipe next time!

Filled Yorkshire Puddings

When I was at university, I once had an amazing meal at the Bun Shop, on King Street- aka the pub across the road from the back gate of college. I was with my boyfriend (my ex, now) and we weren't there for any sort of fine dining experience, just to re-fuel, but were very pleasantly surprised by what we had. I can't remember what they called it on the menu but it was a big round Yorkshire pudding, with basically a roast dinner inside it - meat, roast potatoes, veg and gravy. The yorkshire pudding acted as the bowl and soaked up the gravy, and it tasted absolutely delicious. Since then, I've come across similar-looking ready meals but they just aren't as good. So when I saw the theme for this month's Best of British challenge was Yorkshire, I knew I had to have a go at recreating the dish. It's the sort of thing I might have experimented with a few times, until I got the quantities and cooking time just right, but I'm an 'all or nothing' sort of person; I don't have time to faff around with recipes and if it works, it works.. If it doesn't, we either eat it anyway or order takeaway! On the plus side, I was working from home on the day I made this (thank you, Olympic Games creating a hellish commute for Londoners!) so I did have a bit more time to cook something in the oven.

I don't know if there's a way to cook the roast inside the yorkshire or if the Bun Shop cooked all the elements separately, then served it inside the yorkshire. Realistically, if you're going to do a proper roast you can't do it all inside a yorkshire, and would have to cook it first and slice it up. But as I was only making this for two people, I decided to use up some leftover sausage and do a slightly different variation for each of us.

My failsafe Yorkshire pudding recipe involves 2 eggs measured out in a jug, with equal quantities of milk and flour to the eggs, with a pinch of salt of course. I doubled the recipe for this and used four eggs.

As I wanted to make the Yorkshire the bowl that the other food sits in, I used two shallow, round cake tins for the mixture. Here's one of them as it went in the oven:

They rose beautifully, if a little unevenly!

I had already roasted some small chunks of potato and sliced up some leftover cooked sausage, and placed it in the middle of the Yorkshire pudding

My boyfriend doesn't like gravy and I was worried his meal would be rather dry, so I heaped a tin of baked beans on top

I had a selection of vegetables added to the sausage and potato,with gravy over it

Here are our two dinners: not the most attractive photo but a really tasty and satisfying meal!

Apparently Yorkshire puddings can also be served as dessert with a sweet filling - I might have to try that some time!

Even though Karen from Lavender and Lovage points out that Yorkshire is not just about Yorkshire Puddings, I hope she won't mind me entering this into the Best of British Challenge this month!

The challenge is sponsored by the Face of New World Appliances and you can enter up to August 20th.

Roast stuffed butternut squash and healthy chips

I recently had the slightly challenging task of cooking dinner for two other people, one of whom is a vegetarian and the other eats absolutely no vegetables at all! So this is what I came up with...

Halve a butternut squash and scoop out the seeds



 

Fill with couscous, diced red pepper and red onion (already fried off)

Top with some cubes of feta cheese and put in the oven

Meanwhile prepare a rather tasty looking toad in the hole for the non-vegetarian. Ever since I bought this book, my yorkshires have turned out perfectly!

Finally prepare some Slimming World chips... I bought a potato chipper from Amazon and used it to cut potato and sweet potatoes into chips. I parboil them as otherwise they are too hard to fit through the chipper. You only need to spray these with oil (such as Fry Light) and cook them in the oven, so they are a very good low-fat version of chips.

I don't seem to have taken a photo of it when it was cooked but I can assure you it was very nice!