tag team cooking and yorkshire puddings

Monday night's dinner consisted of what's better known as a British Sunday supper - roast beef, with mashed potatoes and yorkshire puddings and gravy and vegetables. The stuff I grew up on. (Although, strangely enough it's the Hungarian parent, not the British one, who makes boatloads of very British food.) It was also about the easiest dinner ever made.

I'm home a little earlier in the evening this week than my mom is, so when I rolled in and saw the roast my mom had left in the fridge I took a look at it, glanced at the clock and figured it was time to get started. Cooking was going to take an hour and a half so waiting an extra forty five minutes for her didn't make sense. By the time my mom got home the roast had been seared off, was in the oven, and the potatoes were prepped. And lucky me didn't have to lift another finger until it was time to make the gravy. Apparently tag team cooking works out.

Now this recipe I'm about to give you, it's easy as pie. Five ingredients, one appliance, and a muffin tin. That's it. My mom's yorkshires are just about my favourite food ever (excepting, perhaps, broccoli) and she has finally revealed her secret ingredient to me: an extra egg. That second egg is important, as egg is the only levening agent in a yorkshire pudding. No baking powder or soda, no yeast, just egg. So the second egg? That's what make these puff up beautifully.

The other two things you'll really want to be fussy about is that your oil is hot and I highly recommend the use of the blender to make your batter. Both of these help the yorkshires "pop" and so if you want the good stuff try to take care of those.

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp salt
• vegetable oil

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 450*F.
2. In a regular sized muffin pan, put about a teaspoon of oil in each cup. When the oven is hot, stick the pan in for about 5 minutes just to heat the oil up. This will help the yorkshires puff up.
3. In the bowl of your blender, combine your milk, eggs, salt and flour. Blend for about a minute to get lots of air and bubbles into the mixture.
4. Evenly divide the mixture amongst your muffin spots in the tray, filling things about 2/3rds of the way full.
5. Stick them in the oven for 20 minutes. Do not open the door: let the heat do it's work.
6. Let them pop right up and turn into glorious deliciousness. Remove from the oven and let cool about 60 seconds. Use a fork to pop them out of the pan, smother with gravy and eat with mashed potatoes.

You're welcome.