Yorkshire Pudding and a Trip to Ireland

In the midst of all this month’s craziness, I managed to host two supper clubs.  I am delighted that I was able to manage it and fix up the dining room and work crazy hours.  But it is funny how some craziness becomes serendipity.

As certainly this blog will show in the coming months, my determination for supper club themes was inspired by my latest television obsession, Downton Abbey.  Realizing that Downton stretches over three decades, I decided to make every month this year a representation of food from every decade of the 20^th century.  So January starts off with 1900-1910.

As I started glancing through the internet about menu inspiration, I realized there was food for the upper class and food for the lower class.  So taking the Downton theme even further, I chose to have an Upstairs meal and a Downstairs meal.  And that serendipity of crazy meant for the downstairs theme, we had to eat in the kitchen whilst I was painting and re-configuring the dining room.  

I made a pot roast (easy to put in a crock pot and not worry about so I could do said painting).  Then to accompany and take the English soul food theme further, I decided to make my first attempt at Yorkshire Pudding.  Truth be told, that was the main determination of the menu selection.  Because I knew from thumbing through my grandmother’s recipe box, there was a handwritten recipe for Yorkshire Pudding.

I can’t say I’ve had Yorkshire Pudding much in my life.  I remember my mother once cooking a birthday meal for an uncle that involved roast beef and said pudding.  I’m sure I’ve had it at a restaurant – maybe during my stay in England.  The Brennan memory that stands out though is from a trip to Ireland in 2005.

One of the very unique stories I like to share about my family is our trips to Ireland.   I could probably write a whole book about just one trip… but in a nutshell, we have visited our ‘mother’ country three times as a group of extended family.  I’ve only gone on two of the trips – but the idea was we rented cottages, took day trips and hikes, and cooked a fair share of our meals with products from the local grocers in the kitchens of our cottages.  

In 2005, we visited Connemara the first week and Kerry the second week.  We stayed in a couple cottages at the end of a very narrow, rocky and grassy road.  But we were right on the water with a view that looked more like Hawaii than Ireland.  It’s probably a good thing we were so rural because our meals were the typical boisterous rowdy Brennan affair.  

I do remember one meal being pancakes.  Or an attempt at pancakes.  And that’s the Yorkshire Pudding connection.  We went to a local grocer and got the pancake ‘mix.’   But it was actually more a crepe-like pancake… that frustrated my uncle who was attempting to make the meal.  I don’t remember if there was a solution or just a resignation when we realized it was a mix meant more for Yorkshire Pudding than a fluffy buttermilk stack. 

Hm… it’s funny how that one little thought triggers a memory of that kitchen, that cottage that was so damp no towel ever dried.  The fact we drank lots of Spanish wine and I discovered Bulmers for the first time.  The juice that accompanied our breakfasts was Ribena – a juice made from currants.  Brown bread, cheese, and apples for all our hikes.  Getting my ankles scratched by the heather.  Pirate caves.  The crazy old farmer who flirted with my aunt.  Turning 30 and having a whole pub sing to me.

Hopefully someday there will be another family visit.  But for the now, I commiserated with my Irish forbears by cooking a downstairs English meal using my grandmother’s recipe.  Although, it appears from her handwritten note that she got this recipe from another family member, George Edward Brennan.

George Edward was my mother’s cousin – the son of my grandfather’s brother, George.  He passed away in 2004 from pancreatic cancer.  But I always think of him as the life of the party.  He would have had a grand time in that kitchen in Ireland.

So, apparently the recipe he gave my grandmother is as follows:

Yorkshire Pudding (the original spelling is Yorkshore, the ‘o' overwritten with and ‘i')

Use cast iron fry pan or muffin tins

Get fat almost boiling 1/8 or ¼ in bottom. 
Mix 1 cup milk + 1 cup flour, ¼ salt. 
Add after breaking 2 eggs into small bowl.
Add to milk and flour mix gradually.  Beat until batter is smooth.
Pour into hot grease and bake in pre-heated oven at 450° for 25 minutes.

I opted to use a cast iron skillet, thrilled to put the skillet from my grandmother’s kitchen to work.  The fat I scooped from my pot roast crock pot with a little bit of butter.  I realized, of course, that this is essentially pancake batter cooked in meat fat.  Which is funny… considering my little Ireland anecdote. 

I never did take a picture of the finished product.  And sadly it was gone by meal’s end so I couldn’t get remnants – just this photo of my half finished plate.

It was a very good meal.  Rather reminiscent of those meals in Ireland, where good food was just the icing on the cake of good company.  Something that I think is very much in the spirit of both my grandmother and George Edward.