Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding

Ingredients

• Beef joint — rib or topside2 kg
• Flour140 g
• Eggs4
• Milk200 ml
• Beef dripping100 g
• Potatoes1 kg
• Carrots4
• Onions2
• Beef stock400 ml
• Red wine150 ml
• English mustard — to serve2 tbsp
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Whisk the flour, eggs, milk and salt into a smooth batter and rest it an hour in the fridge.

   70 min

2. 2

   Take the beef out of the fridge an hour before cooking, pat it dry and season it.

   60 min

3. 3

   Sear the joint in a pan on all sides to a dark crust, two minutes a face.

   12 min

4. 4

   Set it on the vegetables in a tray and roast at 200 °C for twenty minutes, then at 160 °C for forty more for a pink centre.

   65 min

5. 5

   Lift the beef out, cover it with foil and rest it twenty minutes; it goes on cooking.

   22 min

6. 6

   Heat the pudding tins with a spoon of dripping in each at 220 °C until the fat smokes.

   12 min

7. 7

   Pour the cold batter halfway up the tins and bake twenty minutes without opening the door.

   22 min

About the dish

The pudding rises on a shock of heat: cold batter meets smoking fat, the water in it flashes to steam and blows the shell up.

The batter rests at least half an hour, better an hour. The gluten relaxes and the starch swells in that time, and the rise comes out higher and more even.

Originally the pudding was served before the meat, with gravy, so that guests filled up on the cheap part and ate less of the expensive one. Yorkshire thrift gave the dish both its name and its order of service.

Worth knowing

• — Do not open the oven door once. The drop in temperature collapses the puddings and they will not rise a second time.
• — The fat has to be smoking when the batter goes in. Warm fat gives no steam and the puddings stay as flat discs.
• — Do not shorten the rest. Twenty minutes is not cooling but a redistribution of juices, without which they all run onto the board.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

780 kcal

Protein

56 g

Fat

42 g

Carbs

46 g

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