Janette Rallison is a Chandler mom and the author of Just One Wish, My Fair Godmother, Revenge of the Cheerleaders and many other young adult novels. Here she shares a different kind of story about her oldest family recipe:
As a writer, it seems like dinner often takes a back seat at our house (sometimes literally — I tell my husband to pick up pizza on his way home from work a lot.) And I admit that my family sees more than their share of Hamburger Helper.
(Hey, it’s real cooking if you have to add water and stir.)
Also, a lot of the things I like to cook my kids are not so crazy about eating. A favorite of mine is Seven Bean Soup, which is seven beans cooked in a pot of water with a few chicken bouillon cubes thrown in. (Again, it’s real cooking because water and stirring are involved.) My children refer to this soup as “peasant food” and always try to get out of eating it. (When I was researching the Middle Ages for My Fair Godmother, I never should have told my kids bean soup was a staple of the less-than-royalty.)
But there are some recipes that have been in the family for a long time. Yorkshire Pudding is one of these. This recipe is hundreds of years old — if not older.
One year my daughter had to bring a recipe to school that reflected her heritage. I proudly told her that Yorkshire Pudding had been in the family for hundreds of years. She looked at me, horrified, and said, “My ancestors ate dogs?”
Uh, not that kind of Yorkshire.
Back in England, before potatoes were brought over from the New World, people would make a bread pudding to stretch out their meat meals and soak up the gravy. Those of you who want to see what mashed potatoes replaced can try it.
Yorkshire Pudding
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups milk
1 cup flour
Heat oven to 350 degrees. (If you’re cooking this with a roast, you can put 2 tablespoons of fat drippings from the roast into the pan.) Place the pan in the oven to keep it hot.
Combine salt, sugar and eggs. Beat. Add milk and flour and continue to beat.
Put the egg mixture in the pan and bake for 20 minutes. Turn on the oven’s top element during last minute. Let pudding puff. Serve hot with gravy or eat leftovers with jam.
