Apparently, like risotto, these are tricky to make. People have trouble with them. Fortunately, my mum was an expert (at cooking them in the AGA, no less) but she wasn’t available when the time came to cook them. Hence I turned to my wife. These, I have to say, have never failed me.
The Batter
- 4oz plain flour
- 1 large egg
- salt and pepper
- 200ml milk
- Sieve together flour, salt and pepper.
- Make a well down to the bottom of the bowl, crack in the egg and add a little of the milk.
- Whisk until it’s all combined
- Add more milk, whisk, milk, whisk, etc. Usually I add the milk in 4 parts. Or put the lot in at once and get the electric blender on the go.
- Leave to rest in the fridge for a couple of hours – this is, apparently, very important.
Cooking
- Oven to 220°C
- Place a small amount of lard into the bottom of each well of a 12-well tray and put in the oven to heat up.
- When the oven is up to heat, the lard should be smoking hot.
- Half-fill each well as quickly as possible with the batter mix and get the pan back into the oven as fast as possible.
- Cook for 20-30 minutes – they’ll rise up beautifully, I promise. If it looks like they’re burning, they’re done.
- Remove and serve with a suitable gravy of your choosing.
You can, of course, use a bigger pan and do one big pudding. If that’s the case, mum usually sliced up some onion and scattered that over the batter once it was in the pan at step 4. It might need another 10 minutes or so to cook.
If this doesn’t work for you, blame my mum!
These Yorkshires would make a superb accompaniment to the Rustic Lamb Pasties Parcels over at m’colleague’s blog.