Well after all that roasting, basting and stuffing, I chilled today and made a yummy toad in the hole with some nice fat herby sausages. I’m not sure if I’ve given you my tried and tested batter recipe, but here she blows:
4oz plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
300ml (10 fl oz) Milk
Fat slice (about half oz) of butter
olive or sunflower oil
Pack of sausages
So - get a deep sided baking tin or lasagne dish or something rectangular but not too big and cover the bottom (generously) with oil. Get it into the oven now as you want it really hot (gas 8 or 230 ish). If the sausages are thin I don’t cook them first, but if they’re fat, you might want to put them in the oil now to start cooking.
Put the milk in a jug, carve a nice fat slice off your block of butter, and microwave it until the butter’s just melted. Sieve the flour and salt into a mixing bowl, bung in the eggs, whisk, and then pour in the cooled milk/butter mixture, whisking so you get a smooth runny batter. You can make the batter beforehand and keep it in the fridge.
Right, so now you can carefully pull the oven shelf out with the hot oil (and sausages if you put them in ten mins early), place your sausages in, then pour over the batter. Take care not to get splashed with the hot oil and drop the whole shooting match like I did on Sunday. The oil should be hot enough that the batter starts to bubble up. It’ll probably take about 20 minutes and will rise up all puffy and lovely round the sausages. Yum!!
For the onion gravy, slice a couple of onions, cook them gently in some butter or oil (heavy based pan, people!) until soft and translucent, then add a pint of beef stock and reduce to thicken. If it’s not thick enough for your taste, you can fish out the onions with a slotted spoon and whisk in some plain flour, bubbling and whisking until it’s all cooked out, then add back the onions. Okay so it’s not New Year calorie-counted but sod that, eh? Enjoy!!
