I’ve tried to make Yorkshire pudding twice. The first attempt was following a recipe form Traditional British Cooking, a book we bought many many years ago, using duck fat for the tins. They were good, but not what I except it: they were a bit heavy, not too fluffy and too “eggy”… and the duck fat didn’t work well: they almost all sticked in the bottom…
The second attempt was the one pictured above, form Nigella Lawson’s Feast: perfect! Right consistency, right fluffiness, perfect taste!
I am no chemist neither physicist (always had low grades in those subjects in high school…), so I don’t know how the tiniest different proportion between egg, milk and flour can make such a difference, but Nigella’s were much much much better!!!

Makes 8

245 ml of milk
3 eggs
Salt to taste
190 g of flour

Olive oil for the tin

Preheat the oven at 220° C.
Beat together milk, eggs and salt and let it stand for 15 minutes. Add the flour, give a good whisk and let it stand for at least half an hour.
In a 12 muffin tin, heat the oil in 8 of the holes in the oven. When the oil is sizzling, add the Yorkshire pudding mixture in each tin, filling it for about two third. Return it to the oven and let it cook for 20 minutes or “until they have puffed up gloriously” and they are golden.
Serve immediately!

As you maybe understood, I am a big fan of some English tv chefs, as Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and the often forgotten Nigel Slater. Nigel had a BBC program (among others), Real Food (even a book), in which he underlined in each episode a single type of food: potatoes, garlic, chicken…
I am a well known potatoes eater, so much that my father, when I was little, nicknamed me potato (in Italian doesn’t exist the neuter gender, so for us potato is a female noun)! I love potatoes in any shape or form: roasted, fried, boiled, steamed, jacked… Give me a potato and I will be an happy woman!
My search for the perfect roasted potatoes is going on since my first attempt of cooking. I read many recipes that were suggesting to shortly boil the potato chunks before to roast them in the oven, but it always sounded like too much fuss for something so simple… But it is not! It is the ONLY way to get a perfect crispy crust and a smooth, tender inside. They were so good! And they were wonderful even reheated in the oven the day after: still crispy!!!

Serves 4

8 potatoes
Duck fat (but you can use olive oil… Sure the taste of duck fat is unique…)
Maldon salt

Preheat the oven at 200° C.
Peel the potatoes and cut them in big chunks. Putt all the chunks in a saucepan full of cold salted water and bring to the boil. Cook for 5 minutes. Drain the potatoes.
In the meanwhile, put enough duck fat to cover with a thin layer the bottom of a big roasting dish. Heat it in the oven. When the fat is sizzling, add the potatoes (be careful with the hot splashes!), coat them with fat and cook in the oven, turning once, for 45 minutes or until golden.
Take them out of the oven, sprinkle with Maldon salt and serve straight away.

I am not a big fan of horseradish sauce: too bland yet too hot for such a non exciting flavour. But I religiously follow Nigella Lawson, so, if she makes horseradish sauce, I will make it too…
The taste was good, very different from the commercial one, but I couldn’t say I will eat it for ever and ever… I liked it, nonetheless I didn’t eat as much as my husband… But he is a well known big big big eater: you know, he’s French, he’s strange!!! )
The inspiration for this recipe comes from Feast, by Nigella Lawson.

Make 250 ml

300 g of fresh horseradish
300 ml of double cream
2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
1 apple (more id the horseradish is insanely hot)
Salt

Peel the horseradish and the apple and cut it into chunks. Blend together all ingredients in a food processor until you obtain a creamy texture. Spoon it in serving bowls and refrigerate until lunch.

Introduction

Lately we realized that in all the time we spent in England in the past we NEVER had Sunday roast, neither at home nor at the pub… We absolutely had to amend!
So, last Sunday we make the effort to make everything for the “perfect” Sunday roast, or at least for the Sunday roast of our choice…

And so, here it is, in the fall sunlight (Jesus DOESN’T want me for a sunbeam…):
Homemade horseradish sauce
Homemade Yorkshire pudding (gloriusly puffed, as Nigella suggested!)
Roast potatoes (should I underline the fact that we bought the potatoes but we cooked them?)
Roast beef (my mother’s way)

Stay tuned for the recipes!

Or how to burn eyelashes and some air while cooking…
Home flambé is safe, don’t worry, but only if you are not French and you do not exceed with the amount of alcohol you use.
But if you are French, like my husband, you won’t care: you’ll put too much Armagnac, and while your (very wise) wife is telling you that maybe (only maybe) there is too much alcohol in the pan, you begin to lower the pan toward the flames, that’s how you’ll end up: burned air and eyelashes… Not to much, but still burned…

Serves two

500 g of fresh prawns
Armagnac
Thick sour cream

In a hot frying pan cook the prawns until they turn pink. Add enough Armagnac to cover the bottom of the pan. Lover the pan towards the fire and let the Armagnac burn. When the flames are gone add the sour cream and let it heat trough.
Serve it hot and eat it with your fingers, licking them thoroughly!