When Walt and I were very young, still in high school and dating, he took me out to a real dinner at a real fancy restaurant! I was so excited to have my first date at an expensive restaurant! It was called Chimney Corner, located in Stamford, Connecticut. It was a German restaurant, quite renowned for its food and ambiance.
It was here that we were introduced to POPOVERS! They are a dinner roll that puffs up real big and is airy inside. A lady, dressed in old time clothes, walked around the restaurant with a huge basket full of popovers and offered you another and another during your dinner. You could have as many as you wanted! We loved them!
A short time later I decided to learn how to make popovers. After we married, it became our tradition to make popovers when we had people over for dinner and for holiday meals. As our family grew, the children of course also loved the popovers. Today, the grown children make and serve popovers themselves. It even becomes a competition. All of our phones are ding, dinging with text messages when one sends a picture of their popovers and others text back their picture of bigger, puffier popovers!
So here is the recipe:
2 eggs
1 cup white flour
1 cup milk
½ tsp salt
Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Generously grease six popover pans with butter. (These are specialized pans like an oversized muffin pan, so the popovers can puff up real big. By the way, make sure you have a generous amount of room between the racks in the oven). Beat the eggs only slightly, and then beat in the flour milk and salt, just until it is smooth. I will emphasize, do not overbeat. Fill the cups half full. Bake for 20 minutes when they will puff up and turn slightly brown. Then turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for another 20 minutes to cook through. Immediately remove them from the cups and serve hot. (This is why I say generously butter the cups at the beginning). This recipe makes 6 popovers.
You can imagine that with our large family, we usually make a quadruple batch at least. There are never any left over! They are most definitely worth the calories! Be sure to add even more butter at the dinner table!
PS: Since we moved to New Mexico, we started adding some green chili to the recipe. Yum!
Sincerely,
Gingergaye