Yorkshire Pudding!

oh yeah, and roast beef, too. And gravy, and peas, and roasted carrots, and garlic mashed potatoes. But most importantly, YORKSHIRE PUDDING.


This was my first attempt at this grand and most favourite meal. I did overcook the meat, which I think is a common issue, but it was still so so tasty. I am currently enjoying cold roast beef sandwiches with mustard.

SO: Roast beef. I bought a "French Roast" for $7/kg. I made deep slits in the meat and inserted slivers of garlic into it. I guess I used about four cloves of garlic. I seasoned the outside with salt and pepper, and seared the outside in hot oil in a cast iron pan until the outside was browned.

Then I put it on a rack in a roasting pan surrounded by carrots and onions and tented it with foil. It went in the oven at 350 until my thermometer read 145 - according to everything I've read, that would have been medium-rare, but I guess next time I'll take it out sooner as it was closer to well-done.

While the meat was cooking, I chopped up a bunch of potatoes and threw them in a big pot of water with 6 or 7 whole garlic cloves. When the potatoes were soft, I drained them and mashed the potatoes and the garlic cloves with lots of butter, milk, garlic salt, and some ricotta cheese for creaminess. I kept the potato water to make gravy later.

The Yorkshire pudding recipe I got from Gordon Ramsay via Serious Eats. I had seen Gordon Ramsay lecture people about proper Yorkshire puddings so I figured he was the guy to go to for instructions on this matter.

So I stirred together a cup of flour with 1/2 tsp of salt and added 4 eggs and (in two goes) 1 1/4 c milk. I beat the mixture until it was smooth and then I just let it sit on the counter until it was ready.

About 15 minutes before I thought the roast would be ready, I turned up the temperature of the oven to 450 and poured 1 tsp of canola oil into each hole of a 12-hole muffin tray and preheated the oil in the tray. Then I divided the batter between the muffin holes - it should sizzle in the hot oil when you add it - and then stuck the tray back in the oven until the puddings are brown and puffy. I had taken out the roast by this time, of course.

While the roast is resting and the puddings are baking, you can cook your peas and make your gravy out of the drippings from the roast and your potato water.

Serve the puddings in a basket lined with paper towels, because they are a little greasy. But they are the perfect compliment to a roast dinner and go amazingly well with gravy.