anything | everything | nothing

Once upon a time, Bill lived in England and loved eating Yorkshire pudding.

A couple of weeks ago, he was watching a Gordon Ramsay show on TV and was reminded of this tasty treat.

A few days ago, he texted me while I was at work.

“I’m thiking pot roast and Yorkshire pudding for dinner.”

Hell, yeah!

We had originally planned to go out to dinner with Cathey that evening.  Instead, Bill decided to cook and have both Cathey and his friend Tommy over for a home-cooked meal.  He even went to Williams-Sonoma to buy a popover pan.

So Cathey and I arrived home and were greeted by the wonderful smell of cooking meat.  The big red LC pot  was in the oven, and the shiny new popover pan was clean and ready.  We watched a bit of TV and played some Guitar Hero while waiting for the meat to finish cooking.

Soon enough, Bill took the pot out of the oven and stuck the popover pan in to heat it up.  We weren’t sure how the Yorkies would turn out because he had never made them before.  I kept saying, “the secret is to get the pan really, really hot before you pour the batter in.”  I had never made them before, either, but I felt like I was in on a secret because I once watched the Barefoot Contessa make them on TV.  Apparently Bill was also in on this secret, courtesy of Gordon Ramsay, so my attempt at impressing the crowd didn’t work.

While the popover pan was heating up, I took the roasting juices and made gravy from scratch.  I’ve become pretty good at making gravy.  I like to have the roux a dark caramel color, season the gravy little by little, and add a pat of butter after it comes off the heat, to add some shine to it.

When the fat in the pan started smoking, in went the batter.  Twenty minutes later, we had these amazing-looking Yorkshire puddings!  They were the perfect accompaniment to the pot roast, which was surprisingly very good considering the relatively inexpensive cut of meat Bill used (chuck).  The meat was fork-tender, with a very nice line of fat going right down the middle.  I think the fat helped keep the meat moist as it was cooking in the oven.

It was an amazing meal.  Everything came together perfectly - the tender, moist meat, the flavorful (and plentiful) gravy, and the awesome Yorkshire puddings.

It’s too bad that my mobile phone camera isn’t very good.  The pictures had all the colors washed out and unappealing.  But believe you me.  You wish you were here that evening.

Wine for the evening: A very nice Clos La Chance Meritage.

*burp*