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Bacon & Sausage Toad in the Hole

Name: Bacon & Sausage Toad in the Hole
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h
Ingredients: 12 well flavoured sausages; 12 slices of smoked streaky dry cure bacon; 1 cup (140g) plain all-purpose flour, sifted; pinch salt; 2 large free range eggs, beaten; 2/3 cup (160ml) semi skimmed milk; 2/3 cup (160ml) water; coarsely ground black pepper; Hot onion gravy; Fluffy mashed potatoes; Cooked vegetables

Friday, 8 January 2021

One thing I really love about the Winter months is that it is comfort food season. You cannot get much more comforting than a delicious plate of Toad in the Hole with plenty of mash, veg and gravy!

Toad in the Hole is a very British dish, and very much beloved by one and all. It consists of sausages baked in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with onion gravy and vegetables. You can dress it by adding herbs to the batter or onions, etc. but basically it is just sausages and a pudding batter baked together.

Simple. Today I have added to the appeal by wrapping strips of streaky bacon around the sausages before baking.

One thing I always loved about British Cuisine was their inventiveness in giving fun names to favorite dishes. Bubble and Squeak. Spotted Dick. Jam Roly Poly. Toenail Pudding. Sometimes they can sound a bit unappealing, but that is all a part of the fun of these names.

As unappealing as they sound, they are all incredibly delicious. They are a part and parcel and woven tightly into the fabric of British cuisine, being much beloved by its people. You cannot help but love them also.

This British family staple has been served on British Tables since the 18th century. It began as a delicious and inventive way of stretching and getting the most of what was a very precious commodity in that day. Meat.

During the Industrial revolution, which began mid-century, the working class worked incredibly hard jobs for a very meagre amount of pay. While their bosses became richer and richer off of the backs of the poor, the working poor needed to be incredibly inventive in making their resources stretch.

And nobody was truly exempt from having to work. Everyone in the family was expected to chip in and work for a wage, contributing their earnings to the wage pot to help and keep the family going.

Necessities such as shelter, clothing and food were the most important things, even more important than play and pleasure. Providing even these simple necessities of life often involved long and back breaking hours of labor.

And even then it was barely enough, all pooled together in the pot, to help to keep the family going. Pennies were pinched, and pinched and pinched some more.

It was often a necessity for families to stretch any bits of meat acquired by combining them with cheaper and more filling ingredients. In other words bulking them out with starches and such to help to fill the bellies for less.

Recipes such as this and other batter pudding dishes were very popular ways to do just that. When served with some potatoes and a cheap and tasty gravy on the side, these dishes were destined to become family favorites, to be handed down through the generations.

Dishes which we still love today. One thing is for certain, despite its very humble origins, this is a dish which has withstood the test of time. You cannot beat dishes like this. Humble, filling and delicious all rolled into one.

I doubt very much they could have afforded to splurge on two different meats such as bacon and sausage being served together, but you never know. In any case, it is a most delicious combination and a real favorite.

I like to use a good butcher's sausage. I don't like the really thick ones for this, although you certainly can use them if that's what you have. I prefer thinner ones. I get the best quality sausages my money can buy.

I like my sausages richly flavored and meaty. I don't like sausages which contain a lot of nasty fillers and preservatives. They have a really pasty texture which I find quite unpalatable. You really go get what you pay for and I highly recommend using good sausages.

Likewise bacon. I prefer the dry cure bacon. It just cooks up nicer with a much lower water content. If you can get nitrate free, do buy that! Its much healthier for you.

These are simply wrapped and placed in an oiled baking dish. You can bake them while you are making up the batter.

There is nothing out of the ordinary about the batter. It is simply flour, salt, eggs, milk and water. Beaten together and then poured around the partially baked sausages in the baking dish. I also like to add a goodly amount of pepper for seasoning.

Baked in the oven until the pudding is well risen and crisp and the sausages are perfectly golden brown and done through. You can't get much better than this.

We enjoy it with a huge pile of fluffy mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are the quintessential comfort food side. Light and fluffy, they are perfect for creating a little bowl to hold some of the delicious gravy that is also a must with this dish.

You can use gravy powder of course, or an envelope of gravy mix and most British do. But, making your own homemade gravy is also a very simple thing to do.

To make a lush onion gravy, you need to peel and thinly slice several large onions. Melt some butter, about 2 TBS in a skillet and then as soon as it begins to foam add the onions. I like to add some seasoning and a touch of sugar.

This helps the onions to brown very nicely. You do not really need a lot. Just a pinch will do, or you can leave it out altogether if you wish.

Once your onions have softened and are golden brown you need to sprinkle them with some flour. This depends on the amount of gravy you want. For two cups of gravy I add 2 TBS of flour.

Sprinkle this flour evenly over the cooked onions. Cook and stir for a few minutes to cook out the flour flavor. Once you have done that you can add the body of your gravy which should be some beef broth or stock.

You can use stock reconstituted from stock cubes or a good quality of broth from containers. Either will work well. For 2 cups of gravy you will need 2 cups or 480 ml of stock.

Slowly pour this over the onions and flour in the skillet, stirring constantly. Cook and stir until it thickens up nicely.

A bit of salt and pepper to season and you have a very nice gravy, which is delicious. Ready to spoon over your mashed potatoes and your Toad in the Hole.

And that is it! All you need now is some vegetables on the side. As you can see here today I cooked peas and carrots, but any vegetable will go well. I sometimes like to serve this with greens such cabbage or Brussels Sprouts.

You just serve this with whatever vegetable your family fancies. I guarantee you will receive no complaints from the peanut gallery. This is sure to become a firm favorite with the family or I will eat my hat!

Bacon & Sausage Toad in the Hole

Yield: 4

Author: Marie Rayner

prep time: 10 Mincook time: 50 Mintotal time: 1 Hour

A delicious family favourite. Bacon wrapped sausages baked in a Yorkshire pudding batter until crisp and delicious. Fabulous served with mashed potatoes and hot gravy.

Ingredients

12 well flavoured sausages
12 slices of smoked streaky dry cure bacon
1 cup (140g) plain all-purpose flour, sifted
pinch salt
2 large free range eggs, beaten
2/3 cup (160ml) semi skimmed milk
2/3 cup (160ml) water
coarsely ground black pepper

To serve:

Hot onion gravy
Fluffy mashed potatoes
Cooked vegetables

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7. Have ready a 9 by 13 inch casserole dish which you have sprayed with low fat cooking spray.
Wrap each sausage tightly in a slice of bacon and arrange in the prepared dish. Place in the oven and roast for 15 minutes, until just beginning to brown.
While the sausages are cooking, sift the flour into a bowl along with a pinch of salt. Make a well in the center. mix the milk and water together. Drop the beaten eggs into the center of the flour and then gradually beat in half of the milk/water mixture with a wooden spoon.
Beat for 2 minutes until smooth, then gradually whisk in the remaining milk/water mixture until you have a smooth batter which has the consistency of cream. Season with coarsely ground black pepper.
Remove the sausages from the oven and quickly pour the batter around them. Return to the oven and bake for a further 30 to 35 minutes until the batter is well risen and golden brown.
Serve hot straight from the oven as above with your favorite accompaniments. Yum!

Did you make this recipe?

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Smoked Sausage and Cabbage

Monday, 7 December 2020

Even though this year most people's Christmas's are going to be on a much smaller scale, a lot of us will be looking for quick and easy meals to prepare for our family bubble's in the run up to the holidays. Simple dishes like this Smoked Sausage and Cabbage fit the bill perfectly!

Dishes that go together quickly and easily and that use simple every day ingredients. Recipes that are not a lot of work for anyone! Recipes that are delicious and that the family will enjoy. Recipes without a lot of faffing about!

Today's recipe comes from one of my sister's cookbooks. It is called the Irish Cooking Bible, more than 120 delicious recipes from pub fare to country classics. There are a lot of good recipes in this book. I have already mentally flagged quite a few of them to try at some point!

I love this book so much that I ordered a used copy for myself. I hardly ever buy new books. You can quite often get used copies in very good shape for a fraction of the cost of the new ones. We can all appreciate being able to save a few pennies when we can these days!

Sometimes these used books are available in almost new condition. Often they are available as "very good" condition. I usually pick those. So far I have been very lucky. Most come from non-smoking environments and can even be ex-library copies, so well cared for.

I have only ever been disapointed once. I received a book that someone had gone to great lengths to very carefully remove the pages of all the best recipes from. They used a razor blade. Unless you looked very closely you wouldn't have noticed.

I might not have noticed but one of the recipes I had really wanted and had specifically purchased the book for, the roast chicken, was one of the missing pages. Shame on them.

There are some very unscrupulous people about I have to say. I am glad that I am not one of them!

This recipe really appealed to me for several reasons. One, I love smoked sausage. I also love cabbage, in any way, shape or form!

Two I loved the simplicity of it and its easy of preparation. Other than seasonings, there are really only four simple ingredients.

Smoked Sausage. Cabbage. Garlic. Onion. All four are ingredients that I almost always have readily available to me in my kitchen. Well, the cabbage, onion and garlic at any rate.

One might have to go out and shop for the smoked sausage. I used Schneiders Original Recipe Smoked Sausage. There were about 8 sausages in the pack. I used four and froze four for a future date!

Smoked sausage is quite different than hotdogs. A hotdog is usually made from a smooth textured paste-like filling which is encased in a fragile skin.

Sausages are normally filled with a ground more composite type of meat filling, with texture and they are encased in a thicker skin. Usually a skin which will snap a bit when you eat them.

Whilst hotdogs (frankfurters) are always smoked, a sausage can be either smoked or plain. I enjoy them both ways. Today, for this purpose, you need the smoked.

Smoked sausage, really good smoked sausage, was one of the things I missed when I was in the UK. You could get all kinds of polish sausage, but I was never quite sure which was the best one to use for something like this.

While they are not something which should form a regular part of your diet, they are something which can be very enjoyable from time to time. Both sausages and hotdogs. And yes, I do know what goes into a hotdog.

And some sausages for that matter! I always try to buy only quality, known types of either one. You do get what you pay for in a case such as this. If you don't want to pay a bit more, you get cheap and nasty.

I am not fond of cheap and nasty and would rather pay more to get a quality product. Of course I do understand that not all people have that option.

But while I can, I will. Its as simple as that.

There are many kinds of cabbage available to us these days. I recommend using the hard white cabbage or a winter king cabbage. You want one which will hold its shape well when it is cooked, and not go to mush in the longer cook time.

A savoy or Chinese cabbage would go to mush, and be quite unpalatable. These are more suited to quick cooking methods and do not take very long to cook at all.

I cut my cabbage into 1-inch chunks which worked perfectly for this purpose. It cooked evenly and was beautiful with the smoked sausage. I did not have to add any oil to the pan as the sausage had rendered out just enough to cook the cabbage in.

When Dan got home from work, the first thing he said was, "What smells so good!" High accolade indeed! We served it with potatoes, which we had simply boiled. They were perfect together. I am thinking a nice crusty rye bread would also go well, and perhaps some mustard on the side.

This was a MOST enjoyable meal! The simple things in life really do bring us the most joy.