Toad in the Hole

A pack of sausages
125g plain flour
¼ tsp salt
A few twists of black pepper
2 medium eggs
1egg yolk
150ml milk
150ml water

Gravy (Stock reduction)
500ml good quality stock
¼ bottle of red wine

Put all of the batter ingredients into a food processor, with the plunger removed to help with aeration, and pulse for about five 10 second bursts until you have a smooth batter the consistency of single cream. Leave the batter to rest for at least 30 min before using.
If you are making gravy, add the wine to the stock and boil hard to reduce it to an intensely flavored sauce with a light syrupy consistency. Season with salt only at the end.

Pour 1tbsp of oil into a roasting tin or flameproof dish and place in the center of a hot oven 220c, to heat through for about 10 min. Then add the sausages, and cook them in the oven for a few minutes. Turn them browned side up, and push them around so they are relatively evenly spaced in the tin, pour the batter around and return to the oven for at least 15 min, probably not more then 20, until the batter is puffed up and a nice golden brown.

I’ve been meaning to make this for ages. Yorkshire pudding, all around sausage, what could be better? There are a hundred million recipes for this out there, I wound up using the one from The River Cottage Meat Book. Although, it’s not really the recipe as it’s written, because that called for a variety of meats, but other then that it’s the same.

Speaking of the meats involved. Cookbad was mentioning that she made this once, only it called for meatballs instead of sausage. It makes much more sense if you think about it, because little meatballs sticking out of the batter would look much more like toads in holes then sausages do.

Still, whether it looked like toads or not, it was damn tasty, and I’d make it again.

Make sure you don’t open the oven till it’s time to check if it’s done. The batter can get a bit fussy and fall if it gets a breeze from an open oven door while it’s puffing.

Other then that, this is super easy, very tasty, and kids love it.