Popover Pans and Antique Mustard Pots

A few weeks ago I finally stopped into a store I've had my eye on for quite some time. It's called What's Cookin' and is located on Divisadero near the big car wash. It's a tough neighborhood for parking, so I kept telling myself I'd stop in when I saw a great place to park and didn't have both kids with me (it's a tiny shop overflowing with a disaster waiting to happen of breakables with my two year old daughter). The day finally arrived recently when Oliver and I were on our way to a street party near Delfina restaurant in the afternoon...

For those of you interested in new and antique and/or gently used kitchen tools, small appliances, and lovely little touches such as french dijon mustard crocks; this is what I call a treasure hunt store. I could spend hours in this place mulling over the mix of copper pots, antique silverware, old french market signs, vintage blenders & every conceivable kind of pastry mold you can imagine. My son Oliver was with me and he was fascinated with all of the gadgets, and most especially a hand-cranked flour sifter, just like the one my grandmother used to own. An hour later we left with the sifter, a few cafe au lait bowls, a pretty little white and cobalt blue french mustard jar for little kitchen flower arrangements, and a traditional popover pan.

As I mentioned yesterday, Saturday was a drizzly day in our neighborhood in the city and we were all happy to be lounging in our pjs after a busy week of school and work. I declared 11am "family cooking time", and decided this was the time to give the ol' flour sifter and popover pan their turn in our kitchen. As you read more of what I write, you'll notice I tend to cook things based on some idea I've had stuck in my head whether it's a type of cuisine, one particular ingredient, or in this case trying to replicate the wonderful treat of fresh popovers served with strawberry butter at the Rotunda restaurant atop Neiman-Marcus in Union Square. Oh, and if I haven't mentioned it already, I'm very aware of the fact that I am guilty of writing with lots of run-on sentences, and occasionally a few too many exclamation marks or ... (whatever those are called)...Ok, back to the subject at hand.

Popovers to me are one of those good old fashioned treats that remind me of dinners in restaurants as a young girl on the East Coast or something my grandmother, Nanny, would serve. I can remember having dinner at a place called The Yankee Silversmith with my grandfather, Papa Ed and he'd go there for their popovers, pot roast, and Grapenut Pudding for dessert (yes, made with Grapenuts cereal). They are so simple, so utterly delicious and so similar to another of my favorite foods we rarely see, Yorkshire Pudding. I'm fascinated how the same type of batter of flour, eggs, milk and some melted butter can evolve into a puff of wonder-somewhat crunchy & crusty on the outside, soft & tender with eggy wispyness on the inside.

The recipe I'll include here is from a great book, Cook's Illustrated The Best Recipe. I use it for traditional classics such as Quiche (the best recipe I've ever tried), and my all-time favorite Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. The recipe for popovers includes a thorough investigation and description of why popovers puff as they do without any leavening agents, and for food nerds like me, it's good stuff to read and fun to explain to my son in kindergarten who hears it like a science experiment. The piece de resistance for this is the Strawberry Butter. When I pulled the tray of golden beauties out of the oven , we ate them pulled apart, warm and slathered with the butter. This is a time to make no apologies for butter dripping down your chin-get a nice big napkin and eat some fruit and non-fat yogurt for breakfast the next day, should there be any lingering guilt hanging around. A little note, these can be made in a muffin pan as well-not quite as dramatic in presentation, but delicious nontheless.


Popovers (Courtesty of The Best Recipe)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
2 extra-large eggs
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted, plus more melted to grease pan)

Preheat oven to 450. Place empty popover (or muffin) pan to heat while making batter. Whisk flour and salt together in a medium bowl. In another small bowl whisk together milk, eggs, and melted butter. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients all at once and whisk just until blended.

Remove hot pan from oven and lightly brush interior of pan and rims with melted butter. Fill each cup half-full with batter. Bake without opening oven door for 20 minutes. Lower heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until popovers are rich brown in color, 15-20 minutes longer. Serve warm.

Makes 6 in popover pan, and 12 in mufin pan.


Strawberry Butter: Mix 2 parts softened unsalted butter with 1 part strawberry jam and a pinch of salt. Mix well.