Slowly introduce flour, whisking until thoroughly combined
Allow batter to sit and hydrate – ideally overnight in the fridge, but at least two hours. Let the batter stand for an hour to come up to room temperature before baking.
Load a yorkshire pudding tin with a generous amount of fat – enough to comfortably cover the bottom of the tin when melted (approx 1cm cubes of lard, or a teaspoon of goose fat).
Preheat oven and tin to 200 C for 10-15 minutes. Make sure the fat is properly piping hot.
Just before baking, add the brandy and give the batter a quick stir to combine.
QUICKLY fill the tin; approximately halfway per cup. The batter should fizz, sizzle, and spit, as the bottom cooks in the hot fat.
Return the tin to the oven and bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until golden brown and delicious.
Notes
For the best results, bake these in the morning, and let them cool – throw them on a baking tray into a 180 degree oven for 5 minutes to reheat right before serving. They’ll be even crispier!
flakey finishing salt and freshly ground pepper (to taste)
Instructions
Peel your carrots, cut off the ends and slice into 5-10mm slices on a heavy bias
Heat the butter in a stainless steel pan over medium-high heat. When hot (the butter should be starting to fizz) add the carrot slices and a big pinch of sea salt.
Cook for about 15-20 minutes, stirring as needed until the carrots are tender and starting to brown.
Right before serving, add the parsley, mix it all together and serve right away.
Season with additional pepper at the table if needed.
It's my blog, I'll post recipes on it if I want to.
I wrote this a few years ago as a quick guide for somebody who'd been thrown into running racks to cover for someone who'd been taken ill at short notice. I revised it earlier this year, and then somebody asked about it this week so I'm sticking it on the blog.
do not panic! here's my five minute cheat sheet:
MAKE SURE YOU'VE HIT PANEL ENABLE SO THE RACKS WORK TO CONTROL THE CAMERA!
1) Iris fully closed (that's the joystick, pull it all the way towards you)
2) Pedestal (that's the twisty bit at the bottom of the joystick) to so the luma hits the black ref line on the waveform monitor
3) run auto black balance
4) verify auto black on vector, make sure you have no colour cast
5) open iris, get camera op to find a white thing (or use a chip chart/white card/the other side of your backfocus target if you're lucky)
6) iris to hit 70% video luminance on the scope
7) auto white
8) verify white on vector, again make sure no colour cast
now all your cameras look the same, which is 80% of the battle when you're inexperienced.
target about 70% luma for faces etc, expose with the iris and mostly leave the ped alone to start with
other important things: if the camera has dead pixel compensation, run it every time you set the cameras up (with a bunch of cameras, this happens automatically when you auto black)
Portrush, 2025
A few words about this one...
This is one of the biggest pieces of television I've had the privilege of working on, as well as the biggest scopes of work I've been responsible for.
Fifty-one outgoing vision paths, two remote productions, world feed TX, and some unilateral feeds as well.
