I’m writing this with the taste of the above incredible dish still in my mouth, which, as decisions go, isn’t a half bad one.
The name and recipe are an adaptation of the much-beloved English dish, Toad-in-the-Hole. It was generously offered to me for my cooking project by Mike Batho, an English breadmaker*.
My also much-beloved Cooking of the British Isles (1969) says the dish was created as a way to use up meat left on the joint from Sunday dinner. Today, though, it’s usually enjoyed with sausages plopped into the center of Yorkshire pudding batter.
Huh? says the average American layman. Right, imagine a popover, that eggy, addictively yummy half roll, half souffle. Now imagine it saturated in rosemary oil and meat drippings so it crackles when you bite into it, making the staunchest vegetarian want to pounce face first into the pan like a manic Shih-Tzu. There it is.
A word about the sausages: I wanted a plain sausage for this. It’s not as easy to find in the contemporary U.S. as you might think. Not that there’s anything wrong with Sun-dried Tomato or Mild Italian or Apple Chardonnay—okay, fine, there’s something wrong with that last one—but I wanted to taste this in a traditional way. So I went with all-natural, local breakfast sausages, seasoned only with salt and pepper. Totally didn’t fail me.
And a note: bake this in a big enough pan. I used a pie dish, which made the oil pool up and drizzle into the oven in an unappetizing manner. (You’d think I would have remembered the events of this debacle. Didn’t). If you, too, are more charmed by your yellow Le Creuset ceramic pie dish than by practicality, set a rimmed cookie sheet underneath it.
The dish comes together very quickly. The batter takes about 5 minutes, then it goes into the fridge to relax. Once you’re ready to cook, it takes about 20 minutes.
Mike’s comments are in parentheses; mine are in brackets.
For the Yorkshire pudding mix I used approximately 200g {1 cup} of plain flour, 200ml {about a cup} milk (I used semi) and 4 large free range eggs. Whisk everything together until smooth, & season with salt & pepper. I made the batter a good few hours in advance as it benefits from sitting in the fridge a while. You can make it the night before if you like.
In a small saucepan, heat a mixture of olive & sunflower oils & add a few sprigs of rosemary*. You want about an inch of oil in a small milk pan. When the rosemary has become crisp and has infused the oil, turn off the heat & let it stand until you’re ready to cook.
Heat the oven to 200g {about 400 degrees F}. Place your sausages in the bottom of a large, shallow ovenproof dish. Allow them to colour in the oven for about 15 minutes. Add your rosemary oil to the dish & return to the oven until smoking hot. Pour over your batter and cook for 20 – 25 minutes or until it’s puffed up & golden. Don’t open the oven for at least 20 minutes or you might have a disastrous collapsed pud.
Serve with whatever veggies you like. {Sauteed mushrooms for me.} We had ours with a huge mound of colcannon & red onion gravy. {Though I would not quibble with this.} Bleeding marvellous it was too.
*
Here in the States we’d call this oeuvre something like freaking amazing, but I am an Anglophile, so I’d have to echo Mike’s review.
And just to gild the pud with bacon drippings or however the saying goes, I read Good Omens (Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett), classic English novel, while eating this classic English dish.
Cheers, Mike!
*Mike Batho
Manchester, England
breadstead.co.uk/test-2/
**I went to the store to buy this, and by went to the store I mean I walked six blocks to my old apartment where I planted herbs out front 15 years ago, and plucked a sprig. The next recipe that calls for oregano will have the same outcome.
Marisa, I just might have to break down and make this, or you could make it and we could share it in our time machine, if it takes us a nanosecond to go back to the good old days. It sure sounds delicious.
Angie–This is so simple and homey and delicious, time machine or not 🙂 Make it sometime and tell me what you think. If you can find anyone who makes their own sausages, it’ll be that much better! Happy Mother’s Day!
Reblogged this on Kentucky Angel's Train Wrecks and commented:
A tasty blog by my friend Marisa, a person I want to take with me in a time capsule to re-visit the past.