An Englishman In America

Sunday just wouldn’t be Sunday without a traditional British roast dinner and a traditional British Sunday roast would be the same without Yorkshire pudding. 

For some reason the yorkshire pudding recipe I always used back home in Essex just didn’t work so well in the United States. I couldn’t get the Yorkshire puddings to rise (probably due to the flour being different or the altitude…maybe) so they were more like hard pancakes. However, a little modification et. voila, a Yorkshire pudding recipe which works with American ingredients!

The following recipe makes around 4 - 6 yorkshire puddings depending upon the size of your yorkshire pudding tin…if you have one. Play around with it if you use a flat baking tin or other oven tray.

Yorkshire Pudding Ingredients

2 Eggs

Half a Cup of Plain Flour

Half a Cup of Milk

A Pinch of salt

Raisons or Currants (optional)

1 Mixing Bowl

Wooden Spoon

Yorkshire pudding tin (or any small, round flat-ish baking tin)

Oil / Lard

 Take the flour and add it to the mixing bowl. Then crack both eggs and beat into the milk. Make a well in the centre of the flour and beat in the eggy milk mixture like you are making pancake mix. Use a hand mixer, whisk or fork for the beating ensuring you leave no lumps and beating in as much air as possible.

You should have a somewhat thick, yellow mixture now. If you prefer your Yorkshire pudding sweeter then you can add currents or raisons to the mixture (I do) as well, mixing these in thoroughly.

Yorkshire puddings take about 10 - 15 minutes to cook so these should go into the oven towards the end of your Sunday roast cooking time.

The oven needs to be preheated to around 425-450 Farenheit (220 - 230 Celsius) which is probably will be already if you are roasting potatoes. Add a LITTLE oil, dripping or lard to each individual pudding tray and throw this in the oven for a few seconds to melt it.

Then, spoon the yorkshire pudding mixture into the preheated tray sections trying not to overfill. Now, put them in the oven and in around 10 - 15 minutes they will be ready.

Avoid opening the oven door as this will cause them to flop and you want fluffy, nicely risen Yorkshire puddings, not hard flat pancakes.

Voila! Quick, simple and versatile.

England 2 - 0 Trinidad & Tobago.

 England win again…barely…AGAIN!

As an England supporter you kind of get the feeling the England football team enjoys making life more difficult for themselves than it needs to be.

Following on from the lacklustre performance against Paraguay where a win came only courtesy of an early own goal most people expected to see England come out firing on all cylinders to take apart the World Cup’s supposed whipping boys.

Surprise then, as England play pretty much the same game against T&T as they did against Paraguay! Lacking drive, ideas and energy again, Trinidad and Tobago put up a spirited performance after their 0 - 0 draw with Sweden which almost saw them go ahead with the best chance of the game.

Then finally, England supporters get what they wanted, a fit Wayne Rooney making his first appearance in an England shirt this World Cup. Man, does that England side look a lot different with him in the team. Suddenly there is some drive, some pace, a few good attacking ideas and England finally start looking like one of the favoured sides.

Two late goals win the match and an automatic qualification spot. Now a real test comes as England need to draw or beat Sweden to guarantee missing the old soccer enemy Germany in the first match of the last 16.

Much respect goes to Trinidad and Tobago for another excellent performance against the odds. I wish you luck against Paraguay as that second spot in the Group B is still up for grabs if Sweden fail to grab at least a point against England in the next match.

1 - 0 England…barely.

 OK. so first game jitters aside, this was a pretty poor performance by our boys. Punting the ball up the field to Crouch and shooting from 40 - 50 yards over and over is hardly the best way to win a football match and today England looked like one of the weaker teams in the competition.

The whole side lacked imagination and didn’t seem particularly interested in forcing a decent win aften the only goal in the game came early from a Paraguay own goal.

Boy, does this team miss Rooney or what?!

Hopefully he’ll be fit enough to play before we meet some of the better teams or it’ll be early baths for the England squad.

Still, if a team can play badly and still win then there’s a lot of hope to be drawn from that and things can only get better from now on…

 Bring on Trinidad & Tobago!