Anne Morgan In a roasting tin heated until it’s searing hot, Delia Smith’s toad in the hole puffs up around six pork sausages, enough for 2 or 3, that have already had 10 minutes in the oven. Sliced onions roast on the shelf above at the same time and become a quick gravy while the batter bakes for half an hour.
How to Cook Book One (1998) has it in her chapter on sauces and batters. The Delia Collection: Pork prints it again with a little more meat, 450g of sausages instead of 400g.
Her headnote calls it a sort of fusion food and wishes you could order it in a restaurant. The fusion she means is light, crunchy batter with meaty sausages and plenty of onion jus.
The gravy is what sets it apart. The onions are tossed with a little sugar and roasted until blackened at the edges, which to my taste gives it a dark, sweet depth, and her own choice alongside is mashed potato.
Delia Smith’s Toad in the Hole with Roasted-Onion Gravy
Course: DinnerCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy2-3
servings15
minutes45
minutes630
kcalCrisp, puffed batter round plump pork sausages, with a jug of dark onion gravy to pour over.
Ingredients
- For the toad:
6 good-quality pork sausages, about 400g (14oz)
1 tablespoon groundnut or other flavourless oil, if needed
- For the batter:
75g (3oz) plain flour
1 large egg
75ml (3fl oz) semi-skimmed milk
55ml (2fl oz) water
salt and freshly milled black pepper
- For the onion gravy:
225g (8oz) onions, peeled and sliced
2 teaspoons groundnut or other flavourless oil
1 teaspoon golden caster sugar
1 dessertspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 rounded dessertspoon plain flour
425ml (15fl oz) hot vegetable stock, made with 1½ teaspoons Marigold Swiss vegetable bouillon powder
salt and freshly milled black pepper
Directions
- Heat: Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan), gas mark 7.
- Batter: Sift the flour into a large bowl from a good height, make a well in the middle, crack in the egg and season. Measure the milk and water into a jug, then whisk the egg into the flour with an electric hand whisk on a slow speed, adding the liquid bit by bit and scraping down the sides until smooth.
- Roast: Toss the onions with 1 teaspoon of the oil and the sugar until barely coated and spread them on a baking tray. Lay the sausages in the roasting tin, then put the onions on a high shelf and the sausages lower down for 10 minutes.
- Blacken: Take the sausages out and leave the onions in for 4 to 5 minutes more, until they’re dark at the edges, then set them aside.
- Bake: Set the sausage tin over a medium heat on the hob, adding the tablespoon of oil only if the sausages have given off little fat. When the fat is shimmering, pour the batter in all around the sausages and get the tin back into the oven, top shelf, for 30 minutes.
- Gravy: Meanwhile, stir the Worcestershire sauce and mustard powder into the stock. Put the onions in a medium pan with the second teaspoon of oil and stir in the flour over a medium heat, then whisk in the stock gradually and let it simmer gently for 5 minutes. Season and pour into a warm jug.
- Serve: It’s ready when the batter is puffed, brown and crisp and the middle looks cooked rather than squidgy. Serve at once, with the gravy.
Notes
- Thick, meaty pork sausages suit it best, which is my own advice, as thin ones overcook in the 40 minutes they spend in the oven.
- The sausages should be cooked through with no pink in the middle, piping hot to the centre.
FAQs
Does the batter need to rest?
No. In that same book she mentions the old idea that standing batter is better and says she has never found it so. Her advice is to make it whenever it suits you. Her cookery school video on batters says the same.
That makes it a handy weeknight supper, as the batter can be whisked while the sausages and onions have their first 10 minutes.
Should I use oil, lard or dripping?
You can use any of them, and she uses all three in different places. The book recipe adds groundnut oil just when the sausages need help, while her online cookery school video browns them under the grill first and uses lard, because it’s pork.
In Frugal Food, her older book, the toad starts with beef dripping or lard heated in the tin. Whichever you pick, it has to be really hot before the batter goes in.
How do I make toad in the hole for 4?
Her sage and onion toad-in-the-hole in Frugal Food is the bigger one, for 4. It uses 450g of pure pork sausages, 175g of flour, 2 large eggs, 175ml of milk and 110ml of water, with a level teaspoon of dried sage to season the batter.
The onions and sausages are browned in a frying pan first, then go into a 23 x 18cm tin of hot dripping before the batter. It bakes for about 40 minutes and she suggests gravy or apple and onion sauce with it.
Why didn’t my toad in the hole rise?
Usually the fat wasn’t hot enough. She calls for a tin that is searing hot, with the oil beginning to shimmer, and the batter poured in quickly so it starts cooking the moment it hits the fat.
Tin size matters too, in my experience. Hers is small and deep, 23 x 15cm and 5cm deep, and a big, shallow tin spreads the batter too thin to puff up well.
Can I make the gravy without the toad?
Yes, it has its own page as her onion gravy, and her book points you to it whenever you want gravy without a joint. Without the toad, the onions get their full 14 to 15 minutes on the tray in one go.
