Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings

Subject: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:21 AM

In another dramatic temporal drift, the Chords in Folk thread has now moved onto the subject of the Sunday Roast, causing to me confess that when it comes to Yorkshire Puddings I use Aunt Bessie's frozen batters because even though I come from a long line of YP perfectionists, I can't make any sort of fist of them at all.

So - advice, methods, anecdotes, origins, social histories; anything, in fact, to do with this most traditional of English delicacies - bring it on! And hopefully, come Sunday, we'll have perfect home-made Yorkshire's with our traditional microwaved prepacked Chicken Korma...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Michael
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:37 AM

From historical sources; ie my Granny, who was born in Hoyland Common (near Barnsley) in 1898, Yorkshire Puddings were definitely NOT light and fluffy.They were quite a solid batter pudding, cooked in the roasting tin after the meat had been removed and were intended to fill you up before you ate the meat and therefore make a little expensive meat go a long way.

Mike

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:42 AM

This is born out by experience when going for dinner at a friend's families in a Durham village where a large heavy Yorkshire was served up before the main course, no doubt to take the edge of the appetite. I got the idea that this tradition was vestigial rather than pragmatic however, given the amount of food that followed!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: theleveller
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:49 AM

Right the absolute NO FAIL recipe from a genuine Yorkshireman:

Crack one egg per person into a measuring jug - note how much they measure. Measure the same amount of plain flour and sift into a large mixing bowl; add a dash of salt and pepper (I like a sprinkling of dry mustard as well). Make a well in the centre and add eggs. Measure out the same amount of semiskimmed milk and add about half. Beat with a wooden spoon (never a whisk as this is too frothy) gradually incorporating more and more flour from around the sides. Give it a gtood mixing to remove lumps, then add the rest of the milk. Leave to stand for at least an hour. Put dripping into whatever tin or tins you're using (not oil) put in an oven at around 230C until very hot. Pour in mixture, return to oven and keep the oven door closed for at least 15 - 20 minute, then have a peek to see how they're doing. May need a little longer to cook through - if they're too brown turn oven down a bit.

Yum, yum - serve with roasted rib on the bone.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: selby
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:55 AM

Easy Yorkshire Pudding (serves 4)

Into a bowl
5 Tablespoons of Plain Flour
2 Eggs
Some Milk
And beat together until you have a not to thin not to heavy mixture
Place in a cool place for +1 hour
In your Yorkshire pudding tray put a good knob of fat/lard and put into a hot oven till HOT!!!!
Whip the tray out of oven pour the mix in and straight back into oven until they have risen
Doddle really

A word of caution I gave this recipe to a New Zealand friend who was trying to get pregnant and told her it was an old Yorkshire aphrodisiac she achieved her goal !!!!!

Keith

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: GUEST,buspassed
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:01 AM

Semi-skimmed milk in Yorkshire?!!!

Take me Lord I'm ready!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:09 AM

SEmi-skimmed milk? Sounds like the sort of person who uses chords to accompany folk-songs.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:16 AM

If you like them light and fluffy, use sour milk - when it tastes sour but hasn't gone lumpy yet - and make sure the oil/fat is smoking hot when you put the batter in.

Being a Southron, we didn't have the huge puddings beforehand, but at my Grandfather's farm, every roast, be it beef, chicken or pork had an array of batter puddings. Mother never bothered with them after he died, so I had years of only school batter puddings to stave my pangs. These were baked in a rectangular tin and resembled nothing so much as a piece of cowhide coated in gravy.

Nowadays, when we do a roast dinner, I make at least a dozen and usually 18 batter puddings.... they're all eaten.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:27 AM

So what's the method for batter puddings, LTS? This is entirely new to me but it sounds right up my street...

11.26 by the laptop clock & I'm drooling reading all this.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:32 AM

Serious thread creep, but Keats compared Cumberland dancing to the London style: by saying that it was as beating a batter pudding is to stirring a cup of tea.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:36 AM

I got my recipe from an old cookbook (the sort that had a whole chapter on food for the infirm and recommended things like "coddled eggs") belonging to a very old lady. After years of trying, this recipe worked first time, though I have developed the method a bit through trial and error.

You need 4oz of flour, a pinch of salt, 2 eggs and about 1/8 to 1/4 pint of milk. Put the flour into a bowl, make a well in the middle and crack the eggs in. Add the salt and a bit of milk. Whisk (I use an old fashioned rotary hand whisk for this job, but you could use an electric one), and gradually add your milk, whisking as you go. You're aiming for a consistency like thin pancake batter - if it's too thick, they won't rise. Give it a really good whisk to get the air in, then let it rest for a couple of hours.

Put your tin (I always use a muffin tin, rather than the more shallow Yorkie tins which just don't work for me) with a scant teaspoon of fat in each section (I used to always use lard, but now I find oil is just as good - but don't use duck or goose fat, as they seem to saturate the batter). Put the tin into a very hot oven - if you have a double oven, use the top one just for your Yorkies and turn it up to about 220c. When the fat is really hot, give the batter a final stir to bring it back together, then ladle a small amount of batter into each tin - and I mean small: this recipe makes 18 Yorkshire puddings. Too much batter and they won't rise - you only need about a centimeter of batter per pudding. Pop it in the oven and check on it after about 5 minutes. When they're golden, pop them onto a plate and keep warm, while you do the next batch. DO NOT add new fat for each batch - in fact, I find that the first batch is usually the heaviest, while the second and third, made with less fat, are really light and well-risen.

To recap, here are my top tips:

thin batter
not too much fat
not too much batter per pudding
very hot oven

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:50 AM

Batter puddings are Yorkshire puddings or pancake batter.. it's just the amount of flour that differs. Use more flour for a thicker batter and use the thicker batter for Yorkshires or toad in the hole (batter pudding with sausages in it).

4-6 oz flour, 2 or 3 eggs, milk (sour is good), pinch of salt.

Put flour and salt into a bowl, make a dip in the middle. Break the eggs into the dip and gently mix the eggs together with either a wooden spoon or a balloon whisk. The flour should be incorporated gently - every time you stir the eggs around, another layer of flour sticks to them and gets mixed in. Keep doing this gently until it gets too stiff, then add a little milk. Beat a little faster adding more milk if necessary, until you have a thick, runny batter with no lumps in it. This is ideal for puddings, if you want pancakes, add more milk to make a runnier batter.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 May 08 - 07:08 AM

Of course, if you make pancakes with buckwheat flour, then you get a galette - very tasty, a bit more substantial and popular in Normandy. Serve with ham, mushrooms and melted cheese, cup of cider and you've a meal fit for a monarch.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 07:36 AM

Thanks for this, LTS - oddly enough I've never had a problem getting a toad in the hole to rise... But that galette sounds divine!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Mo the caller
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:23 AM

In my London chilhood we had batter pudding with Sunday dinner. Cooked in the bottom of the oven, fairly solid batter.

No one has posted the 'Elephant Leather' poem yet.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Mo the caller
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:26 AM

Google, google, here you are
The elephant leather poem

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:42 AM

Thanks for that, Mo - here it is below for the sake of those with dodgy browsers:

Hi waitress, excuse me a minute, now listen,
I'm not finding fault, but here, Miss,
The 'taters' look gradely - the beef is a' reet,
But what kind of pudden is this?

It's what? - Yorkshire pudden! now coom coom coom coom,
It's what! Yorkshire pudden d'ye say!
It's pudden I'll grant you - it's some sort o' pudden,
But not Yorkshire pudden, nay nay!

The real Yorkshire pudden's a poem in batter,
To make one's an art, not a trade;
Now listen to me - for I'm going to tell thee
How t'first Yorkshire pudden wor made.

A young angel on furlough from Heaven
Came flying above Ilkley Moor,
And this angel, poor thing - got cramp in her wing
And coom down at auld woman's door.

The ould woman smiled and said 'Ee, it's an angel,
Well I am surprised to see thee.
I've not seen an angel before but thou'rt welcome,
I'll make thee a nice cup o' tea.'

The angel said 'Ee, thank you kindly, I will.'
Well she had two or three cups of tea,
Three or four Sally Lunns, and a couple of buns -
Angels eat very lightly, you see.

T'owd woman, looking at clock, said 'By Gum!
He's due home from mill is my Dan.
You get on wi' ye tea, but ye must excuse me,
I must make pudden now for t'owd man.'

Then the angel jumped up and said 'Gimme your bowl -
Flour and t'watter and eggs, salt and all,
And I'll show thee how we make puddens in Heaven,
For Peter and Thomas and Paul.'

Then t'owd woman gave her the things, and the angel
Just pushed back her wings and said 'Hush!'
Then she tenderly tickled the mixture wi' t'spoon
Like an artist would paint with his brush.

Aye, she mixed up that pudden with Heavenly magic,
She played with her spoon on that dough
Just like Paderewski would play the piano,
Or Kreisler, now deceased, would twiddle his bow.

And when it wor done and she put it in t'oven,
She said to t'owd woman 'Goodbye'.
Then she flew away, leaving the first Yorkshire pudden
That ever was made - and that's why

It melts in the mouth, like the snow in the sunshine,
As light as a maiden's first kiss;
As soft as the fluff on the breast of a dove,
Not elephant's leather, like this!

It's real Yorkshire pudden that makes Yorkshire lassies
So buxom and broad in the hips.
It's real Yorkshire pudden that makes Yorkshire cricketers
Win County championships.

It's real Yorkshire pudden that gives me my dreams
Of a real Paradise up above,
Where at the last trump I'll queue up for a lump
Of the real Yorkshire pudden I love!

And there on a cloud - far away from the crowd,
In a real Paradise, not a 'dud' 'un -
I'll do nowt for ever and ever and ever
But gollup up real Yorkshire pudden!

R.P.Weston and Bert Lee, 1940

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: My guru always said
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:03 AM

If a YP recipe says add 1 egg, add 2 & it'll rise as long as the oven is hot enough!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: pavane
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:28 AM

Like LTS, we have YP's whatever the roast - mainly on demand from the kids (and now the grandkids).
(Usually Aunt Bessies frozen batters, though.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Michael
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:39 AM

RE: my earlier post, My Granny used to put chopped onion in sometimes, then it was known, for reasons lost in the mists, as 'Onion Pud'. Probably originated from days when there was no meat for dinner.

Mike

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:30 PM

On TV last weekend there was a young lad paddling a rather larger than usual Yorkshire pudding in a stream like a coracle.... we thought it was a fake, but apparently it had been baked and waterproofed!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Les from Hull
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:56 PM

That Aunt Bessie - she's from Hull an' all, you know!

On the subject of eating pudding - there was always some left over (intentionally) for after to be eaten as a sweet with what was called 'treacle' - actually Lyle's Golden Syrup. I'm sure the habit of eating pudding first came originally from the idea of filling you up before the meat, but carried on because you wouldn't have got it all on the same plate, and in those days everything was put on the plate in the kitchen, never in the middle of the table to help yourselves too. There was always plenty of spuds (roast and mashed) and some of the mash was kept back with any spare cooked veg for 'bubble and squeak' on Sunday. Happy days!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Grab
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:21 PM

First rule - forget about measurements.

If you like lots of Yorkshires, one egg per person does two large-ish Yorkshires. If it's only a little extra for form's sake, one egg per two people will do.

Crack the eggs into a bowl. Add plain flour a bit at a time and beat in well (with a whisk) until it gets to be about the consistency of ready-mixed Polyfilla - a thick yellow dough. (Do *NOT* use self-raising flour, otherwise you get Yorkshire cakes instead of Yorkshire puddings! My housemates at uni did this to me once by "borrowing" my plain and self-raising flour for some cooking, and then shovelling the self-raising flour spilt on the worktop back into the wrong bag. :-)

Then add a *tiny* bit of milk (about a dessert-spoonful) and mix that in with the whisk until it's smooth. Then another dessert-spoonful and mix again. Then maybe two dessert-spoonfuls and mix again. Then a bit more, and so on. The point is that the egg-and-flour dough won't absorb liquid easily, so if you add all the milk at once then you just get lumps of dough sat in milk. The only way to get this mixture smooth is to mix a little bit of milk in at a time, until the dough finally becomes a thick liquid. Then you can top up with milk as needed, until you've got your finished batter mix.

How much milk? Well, you want the batter mix about the same consistency as single cream. Don't worry too much about this though - it doesn't really matter. (Note: Pancakes follow the same recipe, except there you keep adding milk until the batter mix is about the same thickness as the milk you're adding. You don't want it that thin for Yorkshires though.)

Then beat the batter mix well. At this stage you can also add anything to season it. A bit of salt is pretty much a must. I like to add a bit of rosemary, thyme and black pepper as well - that gives the Yorkshires a taste of their own to complement the gravy, instead of just being a bland floury taste. You need to beat the batter mix so there's a nice lot of bubbles on the surface - this adds air throughout the mixture, which is what makes them rise.

Heat the oil in the trays in the oven. When it's hot, take the trays out and use kitchen roll to wipe it all the way round the trays. Then half-fill the holes in the trays with batter and put them back in the oven to cook until they're brown. Oven temperature isn't critical either. Job done.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: GUEST,buspassed
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:50 PM

There used to be the Great Yorkshire Pudding Boat Race up in Brawby invented and staged by Simon Thackery, the proprietor of the The Shed arts centre. Great fun but I think the foot & mouth outbreak scuttled it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:04 PM

Our traditional Christmas dinner is Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding and we say it just like that to emphasize the importance of the pudding. Here in the American heartland this is an oddity indeed. Folks around here think pudding is a dessert, i.e. Jello pudding, Bill cosby, etc. It often takes some in depth explaining to the uninformed. Folks around here hardly ever eat beef roast or goose for Christmas preferring turkey or ham. I say you just had turkey for Thanksgiving and ham is for sandwiches. Roast Beef AND Yorkshire pudding rules the Yule.
   I won't give a recipe as there are many fine ones here already, but here's a couple tips. Using muffin tins makes nice individual servings with a perfect rise. (They come out like heavy eggy dinner roles and are delicious covered in gravy.) Use pan drippings from your roast, about a tsp per individual section of the muffin tin. If your roast does not yield enough drippings for your needs (this sometimes happens with sirloin or round roasts), instead of resorting to oil I make a quik stovetop beef broth with bouillon powder to supplement. Lastly, Mom taught me to never open the oven door until cooking was complete as this would cause the pudding to drop. Hers usually dropped anyway but tasted just as good.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: Rumncoke
Date: 22 May 08 - 07:16 AM

I got my method from my mum - it is rather more frugal than most metioned here.

Put the cooking tin into a hot oven with a chip of lard. I use muffin tins now, not the smaller ones which were the usual bun tins. When melted there should be enough fat to cover the bottom of the tin.

Break an egg into a bowl, add a pinch of salt and whisk lightly. Add
small amounts of plain flour and milk from two cups, mix to a smooth batter and then add cold water to make it thin - about half a cup. This only makes a few muffin sized puddings - remember, servings of everything were smaller in the 50's.

Turn off the oven, draw out the shelf and add the batter to the tins in situ. The fat should sizzle as the batter is poured in. Only fill the tins 2/3rds full. Slide the shelf back inside gently, close the oven door softly, turn on the oven. After 10 minutes lower the heat slightly. Cooking time depends on the size of the tins, so glass fronted ovens are useful. When the pudding is almost cooked bring out the shelf as before and flip them over to do the bottom. Don't open the door before they are set or they will collapse. The best kind of puddings come from the oven with a hole in the top into which the gravy is poured.

The puddings should not stick to the tin, but the tin should not be washed, only wiped over with a bit of kitchen towel - it is actually permissable to rinse it under the cold tap, but hot water and detergent NEVER. A well used heavy tin is better than a lightweight non stick type, if you can get one.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Yorkshire Puddings
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 22 May 08 - 08:09 AM

Three differences with the above postings:

TIN - Never! Instead use well seasoned (50 to 100 years or more)cast iron

OIL - Never! Instead use bacon grease - heaping teaspoon

As soon as they come out PRICK to the center with a skewer to release steam and prevent soggyness.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle