English Sunday Dinner

English food gets a bad rap. This meal, taught to me by my friend's mother from York, England, is absolutely delicious. "Real comfort food," said my dad when I tested the recipes on 9 of my immediate family members. Unprompted, my 8-year-old nephew said, "This is a good meal." And everyone was scrambling for the last Yorkshire puddings, which are the two things that look like rolls at the top of this photo. See below for the whole story, recipes, and how-to-photos.

photos: Lindsay Sterling

The Story

It’s a bun. It’s a roll. It’s a popover.

And yet, Yorkshires call it pudding.

By Lindsay Sterling

Josephine Morris, from York, England, is whirring around her kitchen in New Gloucester, Maine faster than I can take notes. I ask her who taught her how to cook. “Me mum,” she answers. “And then me self.” I guess I can skip the DNA test to prove she’s from Yorkshire. Watching her move so assuredly in the kitchen makes me doubt the poor reputation of English food. When a cook moves like that, only good can come of it. She has gravy cooking in one pot, cabbage and green beans steaming in another, a beef roast and potatoes in the oven, a cheese sauce forming, a blender full of batter… Whatever she’s making is basically the opposite of a one-pot meal.

Yorkshires call it Sunday dinner. At Josephine’s house, though, Sunday dinner could be any day. “Nikky always wants me to do Yorkshire puddings and a roast when her family’s comin’.” Nikky is her daughter. Over a decade ago, Nikky came to the U.S. for a job in occupational therapy. While here, she fell in love with a native Mainer, Scott Howard, the founder of Olivia’s Garden. (You might have seen his roots-on basil, lettuce, and tomatoes at Portland Farmer’s Market, Hannaford, or in the greenhouses at Pineland Farms. Olivia’s Garden is not to be confused with Olivia’s Organics, a different company from out of state). After Scott and Nikky had kids, Nikky would send plane tickets to her mom to come visit from England. “I’d get back [from Maine],” Josephine says, “And she’d send me more tickets.”

Maybe Nikky couldn’t live without her mother’s Yorkshire pudding. “Nikky would never make Yorkshire puddings [herself]. They’re temperamental. I hope I don’t have a failure.” Josephine says, laughing. She makes sure to start with room temperature milk and eggs, and then to preheat the muffin tin with a teaspoon of oil in each hole before pouring the batter in. “If you haven’t got your fat quite right, or your oven’s off, they might be a bit stodgy.” Stodgy? “They wouldn’t rise,” she clarifies. “It wouldn’t be light. A Yorkshire pudding should be crisp on the outside and almost air in the middle.”

Made of just eggs, flour, milk, salt, and a little oil, Yorkshire pudding is the lightest bun you’ll ever eat. It’s fun to eat food filled with air. Josephine teaches me to not pick it up like it’s a bun, but to keep it on my plate, break it open and pour gravy into the cavity. “More.” She directs the gravy boat until my popover is half-filled and swimming. You use a knife and fork to sweep up pieces soaked in gravy. No worries about having a heart attack. Josephine has thickened her gravy with pureed roasted carrot, green pepper, and tomatoes instead of melted beef fat. It’s a brilliant trick if you ask me. I swear the gravy tastes better than full fat versions I remember. “Is that something your mother taught you?” I ask. “No, that is me.”

Basically, Yorkshire pudding is crepe batter, oven-fried in a muffin tin. In the 1800’s Americans changed the name because they thought, I presume: hey, these things are just not pudding. Calling them “popovers” made sense because they popped over the edge of the pan as the batter rose in the oven. Call them what you will, but make them. If you don’t, and you end up sending for a home cook in Yorkshire instead, well, you wouldn’t  be the first.

Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2013

The Recipes

English Sunday Dinner

Roast Beef, Gravy, Cabbage and Beans, Roasted Potatoes, Yorkshire Pudding, Leeks in Cheese Sauce

As Josephine Morris, from York, England, taught Lindsay Sterling in New Gloucester, ME, July 2013

Serves 8
Cooking Time: 2-3 hours

3 lbs. beef Sirloin roast (or 1/3 pound per person)*
3 cups beef stock
1 cup red wine
1 tomato, sliced into wedges
1 carrot, peeled and cut into thirds
1 green pepper, cored and sliced into 4ths
1/2 onion, peeled and sliced into wedges
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper
2 pounds small potatoes for roasting
3 leeks, washed, whites cut into quarters legthwise, then across into 1/4 inch slices
1 head small cabbage
1/2 pound green beans, stems trimmed

1 cup + 2 cups beef stock

1 + 1Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 cup milk + 2 cups milk
1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
5 small eggs (or 4 large)
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt


*Beef roast - what cut should you get? In Yorshire the cut would be called "Oyster."In Josie's words, this is "the top end of the sirloin. It looks round." I'd shoot for a sirloin roast or a prime rib roast here, These are the more tender, less fatty cuts that will hold together better in the dry heat of the oven and as you slice it thinly as is the Yorkshire tradition.

Equipment

oven proof roasting pan or iron skillet
blender
large pot with steamer insert and lid
muffin pan for 12-24 muffins depending on size of hole
roasting pan
medium pot for potatoes
carving board
fork
chef knife
tinfoil
meat thermometer or skewer
couple hot pads

Take milk and eggs out of the fridge so they become room temperature.

1. Make the roast. Preheat oven to 350. Season beef roast generously with pepper and salt. In an ovenproof hot pan such as an iron skillet sear roast in a thin bit of oil on the stovetop. Once the meat is browned on all sides add 1 cup red wine, and 1-2 cups beef stock. Then slide roast in the oven. Cook 45 minutes and check internal temp with a meat thermometer. Take the meat out when the internal temp reads 140 degrees. Cover with tinfoil and let rest. (She actually didn't use a thermometer. She just stabbed the roast with a skewer and pulled it out. She said when no blood comes out the hole, it's done.)

2. Start making the gravy. Toss the tomato, carrot, green pepper and onion in olive oil, salt and pepper, pour them into a roasting dish and cook in the oven until soft.

3. Start the potatoes and leeks. Preheat roasting pan or sheet pan (for potatoes) with 3 Tbsp oil in it. In a large pot, cover potatoes with water, bring to a boil, and par cook 5 minutes. Saute leeks in 1 Tbsp butter until soft. Set aside. Drain potatoes, return to pot, and bash the potatoes around in the pot vigorously (to break up the edges making way for the hot oil). Pull the preheated pan out of the oven, and place the potatoes in the hot oil, moving the potatoes around so each is covered all the way with hot oil. Bake until soft throughout and skins are slightly crispy.

4. Steam the veg. Cut cabbage into 1-2 inch pieces, put in a steamer pan with water on the bottom and steam with lid on for 30-40 minutes until soft. (Add green beans to steamer pan with 10 minutes or so to go so they will be done at the same time). Put in serving bowl with a couple pads of butter.

5. Blend the roasted veggies in a blender until as smooth as possible. Heat the puree in a medium pot with enough beef stock to create a gravy consistency. Let simmer together until the rest of the dinner is ready. Serve in a gravy boat or small pitcher on the table.

6. Make the cheese sauce. In a small pot make the cheese sauce. Melt 1 Tbsp butter, stir in 1 Tbsp flour. Let that cook for a couple minutes, then whisk in 1/2 cup milk. Keep stirring as you bring it to steaming hot. It will become thick and smooth. Turn heat off. Add grated cheddar and mix until melted. Pour cheese sauce over sauteed leeks and mix. Cover with tinfoil to keep warm until everything else is ready.

7. Make the Yorkshire puddings. Turn the oven temp up to 425. Pour a teaspoon of oil in each hole of the muffin pan and stick the muffin pan in the oven to preheat. In a blender, combine 5 eggs, 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 2 cups milk. Blend until smooth. Blend until (when the blender is off and you've removed the lid) the top of the batter is filled with little air bubbles. Remove the muffin tin from the oven and pour batter so it fills 1/3 of the depth of the holes in the muffin tin. Cook in oven about 20 minutes until they are golden brown. Check on them after fifteen minutes and give the pan a turn for even cooking if you are not using a convection oven. Open oven door and let popovers cool down gradually in oven to encourage them to stay puffy.

Serve all components in separate dishes on the table so guests can make their own plates and get seconds as desired.

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2013

See How To Do It

Josephine's Sunday Dinner

Beef Roast, Steamed Veg, Yorkshire pudding, Gravy, Leeks in Cheese Sauce

Roasted veggies that get blended up to thicken the gravy.

Then whisk in beef broth and let simmer together for a half hour so flavors meld. I missed the photo of the final gravy. Roast beef. Make potatoes. (Also missing these photos)

As for the puddings. You blend ROOM TEMPERATURE eggs, flour and milk until the batter is all bubbly on top. While you are making the batter your muffin tins are preheating in the oven, each hole with a teaspoon of oil in it.

Then you pour the batter into the hot oil. It sizzles so you know this is going to work!

Then you heat them in the oven. They'll rise over the pan in there.

Also make steamed cabbage and green beans.

Here are mashed potoatoes. She prefers roasted (the recipe's in the recipe section) but she ran out of time to do it right so she whipped these up.

Here they are! Yorkshire puddings. Or popovers as we call them.

Saute sliced leeks,

Make cheese sauce.

Melt butter, add flour, cook a couple minutes, stirring, then add milk. Once hot, it'll thicken. Stir so nice and smooth.

Then add sharp cheddar.

Just pour the cheese sauce into the leeks and stir up. This is delicious.

Yorkshire's like their roast beef sliced THINLY please.

Photos: Lindsay Sterling - use by permission only. Thanks.