Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding (1906)
Reader ratingsRoast beef and Yorkshire pudding from the 1906 edition of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management: a two-rib roast cooked by her rule of fifteen minutes to the pound, with the batter pudding baked in the dripping.
- Recipe makes
- 6 servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Make the batter once the beef is in the oven: it stands for at least an hour while the beef roasts and rests. The pudding bakes in the hot oven while the beef rests, and the gravy is made in the roasting pan at the end.
Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding baked in one tin.
The story behind the recipe
Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding was the main course of the midwinter dinner at Cape Evans on June 22, 1911, served after the seal soup with fried potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Scott wrote the dish down without comment.
Fifteen minutes to the pound
Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, in its 1906 edition, treats roast beef as needing hardly any recipe. The ingredients are “Beef, beef-dripping,” and the method sends the cook to the chapter on roasting, where the rule is set out: “15 minutes to each lb. of beef and mutton, and 15 minutes over.” Beef, the book adds, should be cooked “so that, in carving them, the gravy will just run, but not too freely.” The usual joints were the sirloin, the ribs and the aitchbone, and the usual companions gravy and horseradish.
The Yorkshire pudding gets its own entry, a pint of milk, two eggs and four heaped tablespoons of flour, beaten for ten minutes and left to stand for an hour. Then the book draws a line between two puddings. Properly, it says, a “Yorkshire” pudding is always cooked in front of the fire, below the roasting meat on its stand; baked in the oven, it is what people in Yorkshire call “batter pudding.”
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Making it today
Ours is the oven kind. We roast a two-rib joint on the bone at a high heat for fifteen minutes and then a moderate one, which follows the book’s advice to start the oven hot and lower it, and we take the beef out at 145°F (63°C) in the center. Beeton’s batter is about five parts milk to one of flour by weight, so it bakes into a lower, softer pudding than the tall puffs of today; we read her four heaped tablespoons of flour as four ounces.
This is the roast from What Did Scott’s Men Eat for Midwinter at Cape Evans?, and the Mince Pies (1906) from the same book followed it to the table.
Ingredients.—Beef, beef-dripping.
Method.—See notes on “Roasting.” The joints usually roasted are the sirloin, ribs, and aitchbones, and sometimes the round. ...
Ingredients.—1 pint of milk, 2 eggs, 4 heaped tablespoonfuls of flour, salt, dripping.
Method.—Put the flour and a good pinch of salt into a basin, make a well in the centre, break in the eggs, stir, gradually mixing in the flour from the sides, and add milk by degrees until a thick smooth batter is formed. ...
Recipe makes: 6 servings
Ingredients
For 6 servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 6 servings.
Beef
- Beef rib roast, two ribs, bone in4 lb
- Salt0.2 oz
- Beef dripping, for basting1 oz
Yorkshire pudding
- All-purpose flour4 oz
- Salt for the batter0.1 oz
- Large eggs2
- Whole milk20 fl oz
- Fat from the roasting pan, or beef dripping1 fl oz
Gravy
- Beef stock or water10 fl oz
- Salt and pepper
- Horseradish sauce, to serve (optional)
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 4 lb beef rib roast, two ribs, bone in
- 0.2 oz salt
- 1 oz beef dripping, for basting
- 4 oz all-purpose flour
- 0.1 oz salt for the batter
- 2 large eggs
- 20 fl oz whole milk
- 1 fl oz fat from the roasting pan, or beef dripping
- 10 fl oz beef stock or water
- Salt and pepper
- Horseradish sauce, to serve (optional)
Equipment
- Roasting pan with a rack
- Metal baking pan, about 9 by 13 inches
- Mixing bowl
Whisk- Kitchen string (optional)
Instant-read thermometer
Instructions
Take the beef out of the refrigerator an hour before cooking. If the bones are loose, tie the joint between them with string so it holds its shape.
Heat the oven to 450°F (230°C). Rub the beef all over with the salt, set it bone side down on the rack in the roasting pan, and spread the top with the beef dripping.
Roast for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350°F (175°C) without opening the door.
While the beef roasts, make the batter. Put the flour and the salt for the batter in the mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Break in the eggs and stir, drawing in the flour from the sides and adding part of the milk a little at a time until you have a thick, smooth batter. Beat it hard with the whisk for 3 minutes, then whisk in the rest of the milk. Cover and leave to stand for at least 1 hour.
Roast the beef for about 1 hour more, basting twice with the fat in the pan, until a thermometer pushed into the center of the meat, away from the bone, reads 145°F (63°C).
Lift the beef onto a board, cover it loosely with foil and leave it to rest for 30 minutes. Turn the oven up to 425°F (220°C).
Spoon the fat from the roasting pan into the baking pan and put it in the oven for 10 minutes, until the fat is smoking hot. Whisk the batter again, pour it into the hot fat and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the pudding is set in the middle and well browned at the edges. Don’t open the oven for the first 20 minutes.
While the pudding bakes, pour off all but a spoonful of fat from the roasting pan. Set the pan over medium heat, add the beef stock or water and boil for 3 to 5 minutes, scraping up the browned bits, until it has reduced a little. Season with salt and pepper and strain into a warm jug.
Carve the beef across the grain, cut the pudding into squares and serve both hot with the gravy and, if you like, horseradish sauce.
Nutrition
790calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 6 servings
- Servings
- 6
Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for the listed ingredients, counting part of the beef fat as rendered into the pan.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Allow about 15 minutes per pound of beef, plus 15, and go by the thermometer. For half the pudding, use one egg and a pan about 8 inches square.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
A boned and rolled rib roast works the same way and is easier to carve, which is what Beeton suggests for one or two ribs off a large animal; roast it on the rack. Beeton’s raisin version (no. 1931) was “frequently served with gravy, and, as a rule, before the meat.” Leftover beef keeps for 3 days in the refrigerator. Contains milk, egg and wheat.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Isabella Beeton, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, new edition (London: Ward, Lock, 1906), Beef, Roast (no. 862) and Yorkshire Pudding (no. 1930)
Recipe details
- Course
- Main course
- Dish family
- Meat & Poultry
- Region
- British
- Era
- Edwardian
- Source decade
- 1900s
- Main ingredient
- Beef
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Occasion
- Dinner party
- Season
- Winter