Royal Society of Chemistry issue requiremnts for Yorkshire Puddings

[Chris]

Yorkshire pudding must be four inches tall, chemists rule

A Yorkshire pudding isn't a Yorkshire pudding if it is less than four inches tall, says the Royal Society of Chemistry.

The Society has ruled on the acceptable dimensions of the Yorkshire pudding and is now issuing the definitive recipe.

The judgement followed an enquiry from an Englishman living in the Rockies in the USA who emailed the RSC seeking scientific advice on the chemistry of the dish following a string of kitchen flops.

The Royal Society of Chemistry Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

Tablespoon and a half of plain flour

1 egg

Half milk, half water to make a thin batter

Half a teaspoon of salt.

Method

Put flour in a bowl, make a well in the middle, add the egg, stir until the two are combined then start gradually adding the milk and water combining as you go.

Add the liquid until the batter is a smooth and thin consistency.

Stir in half teaspoon of salt and leave to stand for 10 minutes

Put beef dripping into Yorkshire pudding tins or into one large tin but don't use too much fat.

Put into hot oven until the fat starts to smoke.

Give the batter a final stir and pour into the tin or tins.

Place in hot oven until well risen - should take 10 to 15 minutes.

Serve

Always serve as a separate course before the main meal and use the best gravy made from the juices of the roast joint. Yorkshire housewives served Yorkshire pudding before the meal so that they would eat less of the more expensive main course.

NB: When the batter is made it must not be placed in the fridge but be kept at room temperature

[Chris]

Crap, now I'm hungry. 

Is there anything better than Yorkshire Puddings and beef gravy? 

[Thor]

Crap, now I'm hungry. 

Is there anything better than Yorkshire Puddings and beef gravy? 

Yeah......... grits with tons of butter and maybe an egg or two mixed in......

[Chris]

I've only had grits once or twice and I don't think they were done right.  Very dry and grainy.

[Thor]

Good grits should have the consistency of Cream of Wheat, maybe just a tad thicker.

[Chris]

One of these days, I'm going to sit down with a plate of puddings and gravy and polish off the entire thing.  

[franksolich]

There's a, uh, significant problem with this recipe.

Ingredients

Tablespoon and a half of plain flour

1 egg

Half milk, half water to make a thin batter

Half a teaspoon of salt.

What's that make, about half a cup of Yorkshire Pudding?

Enough for a quarter of a person?

And then later on in the instructions, meat drippings are mentioned.....but there's no meat drippings listed with the ingredients.

[Chris]

Always serve as a separate course before the main meal and use the best gravy made from the juices of the roast joint. Yorkshire housewives served Yorkshire pudding before the meal so that they would eat less of the more expensive main course.

My mother made these while I was growing up and still makes them for Christmas.  A small(ish) bowl of batter was enough to feed a family of five.  They're mostly air.  The last time I had them, we had a standing rib roast.  Lots of meat drippings there, but I did work in a restaurant that had them on the menu.  I don't remember what they used for drippings -- probably some sort of lard or beef shortening.

[debk]

God Bless her.....this was about the only thing my Scot Granny could make without totally destroying it.

She was such a horrible cook.....she passed the bad cook gene on to my aunt too. When I went to my aunt's funeral last year....it was the one thing thing all of us laughed and joked about ....that neither Gran or Aunt Jeanie could cook worth a darn. Her kids were all laughing that they had to learn to cook for survival.

[Chris]

My mom said the same thing.  She was the oldest of seven brothers and sisters and grew up cooking and cleaning in other people's houses to get by.  She's a good cook, but she can't make chili worth a damn.

[Chris]

Funnay... my brother runs a restaurant in Ohio now.  We used to watch Mom cook all weekend but never imagined one of us would end up doing it for a living.  I spent about a decade working in once kitchen or another, but I've always gravitated toward computers when it came to what I wanted to do.  My sister is trying to get a job as a teacher. 

Life.  Heh. 

[Chris]

My mother used to make mashed peas. 

Normally, I love fresh or frozen green peas but these were horrible.  I have no idea where she got them, because I've never seen dehydrated peas for sale anywhere.  After reconstituting, cooking, and mashing them, the taste was unbearable. 

[debk]

My Gran used to cook calf brains in milk and butter....then pour them over toast.

I'd go hide.   

My mother was a very good cook as was her mother. Unfortunately she died before she really taught me much about cooking.

My stepmother cooked because she had to.

I learned to cook from a Betty Crocker cookbook. Now I collect cookbooks to read....and according to those I cook for....have become a fairly good cooker.

I've had some real whoppers of mistakes. When I first started making gravy, it could have been used for wallpaper paste. When I first started making biscuits and rolls....they could have been hockey pucks.

I am not good at grilling.....mainly because I have no interest in learning.

I have little experience with deep frying....my dad and I set the kitchen on fire a few months after my mom died...because we put oil on the stove to heat to make fried shrimp.....and forgot about it. He was reading the paper and I was doing homework. He got burned on his hands....and I have always been afraid of deep frying ever since. I even have a fry daddy and don't use it.

I would like to learn cake decorating though.....

[Chris]

If you get a job working in restaurants and you're not washing dishes, the first thing they'll start you on is deep frying.  The thing is to have lots of oil and not to overheat it.  Grilling can be difficult, especially if you're cooking a dozen pieces of chicken, ribs, pork, and half a dozen steaks all done to different temperatures.  It was something I never got the hang of, but my brother can whoop some ass on the grill.  We worked at a steakhouse together after HS... he was the grill cook and I did a little bit of everything else. 

Cake decorating is all about having the right tools.  Spatulas, L-squares, lazy susans, pastry bags with decorative nozzles.

I'd rather stick with my dutch oven and sautee pans now.  It's eaiser.