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Toad-in-the-Hole
Toad-in-the-hole is a curious name for a dish not unlike an English meat pudding. Lean beef is used, and it should be gently simmered in a little stock or water until tender, then cut into inch squares, well seasoned and placed in a baking dish. Over this is poured a thick batter made with 1 cupful of flour, I beaten egg, ½ cupful of milk, 1 tablespoonful of melted butter, 1/2 teaspoonful of salt and 1 teaspoonful of bakingpowder. It will bake in a moderate oven in from forty-five minutes to one hour, according to the depth in the dish. With it serve the thickened and seasoned gravy.
A frugal version of toad-in-the-hole that uses simmered stewing beef rather than sausages, bound in a thick pudding batter. The original leaves the quantity of meat to the cook's judgement.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven is usually taken as about 350F. At that heat a batter this thick will likely need the full hour if it is more than about two inches deep; check that a skewer comes out clean at the centre.
- How much beefNo weight is given. About 1 to 1½ lb of lean chuck or shin, trimmed and cut into inch cubes after simmering, suits the batter quantity here and serves four.
- Simmer the beef properlyChuck or shin needs 1½ to 2 hours at a bare simmer to become tender. The oven time is for the batter only and will not soften undercooked meat.
- The batter is deliberately thickOne cupful of flour to half a cupful of milk and one egg gives a stiff, spoonable batter closer to a steamed pudding than to Yorkshire pudding. If you want the light, risen crust most people expect, use a pouring batter of equal volumes flour and milk with two eggs and leave out the baking powder.
- Baking powderChemical leavening gives a softer, more scone-like crumb than an unleavened batter.
- Grease the dish wellButter or beef dripping the baking dish generously and warm it before the batter goes in. Batter poured into a cold dry dish over damp meat sticks badly.
- The gravySave the simmering liquid, reduce it, and thicken with a roux or a little flour-and-water slurry. It is the only moisture the finished dish has.
- ServingServes four with a green vegetable or mashed potato. Cut and serve straight from the dish; it slumps as it cools.
The name appears in English cookery from around the late eighteenth century, and is often said to describe the meat peeping out of the risen batter like a toad from its hole. Early versions used whatever cheap meat was to hand -- kidney, chops, pigeon, leftover joint -- and the sausage version now treated as canonical is generally thought to be a later, more urban form. This entry belongs to the frugal end of the tradition: batter is flour, milk and an egg, and it stretches a modest amount of stewing beef into a dish for a family. The instruction to simmer the beef tender first, rather than trusting the oven, marks it out from Yorkshire-style recipes that rely on quick-cooking cuts, and suits the tougher, cheaper cuts.