The closest they come to pastry is choux pastry. Think of them as a meat-flavoured profiterole with a denser, more pancake-y base.
Another advantage to the oil rather than drippings method:
They’re more flexible, because the flavor is neutral rather than meaty-savory. If you have leftovers, you can treat them like a popover. When you reheat and serve them up next day, you can give them a shmear of nutella or jam and have them for breakfast.
I haven’t made Yorkshire puds or popovers in a long time. Let’s see, where’s my popover tin?
I’m with Amateur Barbarian on this, Yorkshire pudding made with anything but beef drippings is heresy. HERESY!
Also, RE: well-done vs. medium rare roast beef- what we do is get two roasts of different sizes- say a 5 lb. and a 3 lb. and cook 'em together. Meat thermometer in the larger one, cooked to about 130 for most of us who prefer medium rare, and the smaller one will be nice and well done in the middle for the minority of the family that can’t deal with any pink. That way there’s also more brown end pieces for everybody too. Win-win.
They are only meat flavoured if you cook them in beef dripping or smother them in gravy. You can actually have them with sweet or savoury food. They are somewhere between a pancake and a choux pastry.
I don’t cook them with beef dripping for the simple reason that I can’t be bothered most of the time. Oil works just fine.
Um, it’s not a thing according to this Brit, but the cheesy sauce thing does sound rather tempting. The normal accompaniment would be a meat gravy loaded with fried sliced onions.
No no no, the proper British way with roast beef is ROAST potatoes, and yorkshire puddings (plus about 3 different vegetable sides, horseradish sauce and lots of freshly made gravy).
I do a traditional roast every Sunday (alternating beef rib/leg of lamb/shoulder of pork/whole chicken).
Well the really traditional way would be to serve them as a starter with loads of gravy.
My dad was posted to Yorkshire during WW2 (to work on aircraft reclamation) and was billeted with a local family. First night there, he was presented with a huge Yorkshire pud, which he gratefully, and quickly, polished off. He was asked if he’d like another, which he gratefully, but rather more slowly, also despatched. He was a bit surprised to find himself then presented with the main course.
I guess that was the whole point. Fill up with cheap Yorkshire puds, then you don’t need so much of the more expensive (and more heavily rationed) stuff.
Hah, James Herriott described this practice when writing about a Yorkshire farm family’s dinner. When bringing the pud to the table, the mom would say, “Them as eats most pudding gets most meat.”
Just out of curiosity, what are “leftovers” regarding YPs? I’ve never seen them… 
That’s exactly what I was thinking. Popovers. YUM!!!
But you have eat them right our of the oven, with loads of butter.
Well, the recipe made 12 and there are only 2 of us…
I guess I did make popovers. And I tried one with butter, it was quite tasty.
The last time I made popovers, I did something a little differently. I let the batter sit for a good hour or more in the fridge before pouring it into the tin. The resulting popovers were much taller and poofier. They looked like little hot air balloons.
However, when making YPs, you wouldn’t want to do this. You want them to collapse a little and form a sort of round crater on the top, the better to receive gravy or au jus.
Too true. My Dad, from Sheffield, often made reference to that but just accepted the small single puds as part of the main roast. He had a wife from Scotland and was a crap cook himself, so I guess he just had to deal with it.
When I was at university (Birmingham, UK) there was a place that sold large puds with a kind of stew thing inside it. Now that was some good eating.
I’ve made basically the same recipe with just butter. Delicious. But then I’m also of the opinion that butter will improve a lot of things in the place of just oil.
I haven’t done a lot of research on this, but I’m pretty sure that fat from whatever source tends to affect the structure of baked goods. In bread, it makes for smaller holes and an overall smoother texture. Presumably, oil earns its keep in creating structure and texture in Yorkshire pudding as well.
It’s just jus, ‘au jus’ means ‘with jus’.
I make my puds with oil, all the better to fill the leftovers with honey the next morning.
When I was growing up my mam used lard and they always came out OK. Round our way there is a couple of restaurants that serve yorkshire pudding as a starter, with gravy and yorkshire salad; which is finely chopped spring onions, lettuce, and mint in vinegar.
I’ve tried both butter and oil when I wanted YP but didn’t have any beef fat, and find butter is tastier than oil.