cheddar

When we first started our cooking blog, one of the first posts was about popovers. At the time I was convinced that cold-oven popovers were the best choice over popovers made in a preheated oven. The science made sense (cold batter brought slowly to a very hot temperature would create steam to make them pop) and to be honest, I had only eaten/made cold-oven popovers. And my husband and I loved them, and the cats vied for scraps.

But, with the new year, a sad thing has recently happened to our oven; It takes forever to heat up now and recent attempts at making popovers have been a gooey mess without a crisp crust, or any height.

So, I decided to make popovers in a hot oven and … wow.

What a difference starting off at 400 degrees can make.

Here is the photo that accompanied the cold oven method. They had popped, but they weren’t killing themselves being overly ambitious.

And here is a close-up photo of a popovers using the hot oven method.

All six of them  looked like Tomoyuki Tanaka movie monsters.

And their height and airiness was even more surprising considering the fact that they had prosciutto, dill and cheddar in the batter.

Prosciutto, Dill and Cheddar Popovers (Hot Oven Method)

• 1 cup of milk (warmed in the microwave for 45 seconds)
• 1 cup of flour
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped dill
• ¾ cup of shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 slices of finely diced prosciutto
• 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of black pepper
• 2 tablespoons of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Pan fry the prosciutto in olive or grapeseed oil until brown and crisp.

With a pastry brush use the melted butter to grease the muffin tin cups, and place the pan in the oven for a couple of minutes until the butter is sizzling.

Add salt, pepper, cheese, prosciutto, flour and eggs to the warmed milk.

Take the pan out of the oven and drizzle the rest of the melted butter into the bottom of the tins. Pour the popover batter into the tins until they are approximately 1/2 to 3/4 full.

Place the muffin tin into the hot oven and tiptoe away from the stove for 35-40 minutes. (Even if they aren’t done at 35 minutes, they won’t collapse if you take a peek and decide they need to brown a little bit more.)

 

Happy Recipe Sunday. Let’s talk about food.