Toad in the hole or sausage toad is a traditional English
dish consisting of
sausage
A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders.
...
s in
Yorkshire pudding
Yorkshire pudding is a baked pudding made from a batter of eggs, flour, and milk or water. A common British side dish, it is a versatile food that can be served in numerous ways depending on its ingredients, size, and the accompanying compon ...
batter, usually served with
onion gravy
Onion gravy is a type of gravy prepared with onion. Various types of onions are used in its preparation. Some preparations caramelize the onions. Onion gravy may be served to accompany many foods, such as pork, beef steak, meatloaf, hamburger, ban ...
and vegetables.
Historically, the dish has also been prepared using other meats, such as
rump steak
Rump steak is a cut of beef. The rump is the division between
the leg and the chine cut right through the aitch bone. It may refer to:
* A steak from the top half of an American-cut round steak primal
* A British- or Australian-cut from the ru ...
and lamb's kidney.
Origins
Batter puddings became popular in the early 18th century.
Cookery writer Jennifer Stead has drawn attention to a description of a recipe identical to toad in the hole from the middle of the century.
At this time,
Northerners tended to use
dripping
Dripping, also known usually as beef dripping or, more rarely, as pork dripping, is an animal fat produced from the fatty or otherwise unusable parts of cow or pig carcasses. It is similar to lard, tallow and schmaltz.
History
It is used for ...
to make their puddings crispier, whereas
Southerners made softer
Yorkshire pudding
Yorkshire pudding is a baked pudding made from a batter of eggs, flour, and milk or water. A common British side dish, it is a versatile food that can be served in numerous ways depending on its ingredients, size, and the accompanying compon ...
s.
Dishes like toad in the hole appeared in print as early as 1762, where it was described as a "vulgar" name for a "small piece of beef baked in a large pudding". Toad in the hole was originally created as a way to stretch out meat in poor households.
Chefs therefore suggested using the cheapest meats in this dish. In 1747, for example,
Hannah Glasse
Hannah Glasse (; March 1708 – 1 September 1770) was an English cookery writer of the 18th century. Her first cookery book, ''The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy'', published in 1747, became the best-selling recipe book that century. It w ...
's ''
The Art of Cookery'' listed a recipe for "pigeon in a hole", calling for pigeon rather than the contemporary sausages. In 1861
Isabella Beeton
Isabella Mary Beeton ( Mayson; 14 March 1836 – 6 February 1865), known as Mrs Beeton, was an English journalist, editor and writer. Her name is particularly associated with her first book, the 1861 work '' Mrs Beeton's Book of Household ...
listed a similar recipe using
rump steak
Rump steak is a cut of beef. The rump is the division between
the leg and the chine cut right through the aitch bone. It may refer to:
* A steak from the top half of an American-cut round steak primal
* A British- or Australian-cut from the ru ...
and
lamb's kidney, while
Charles Elmé Francatelli
Charles Elmé Francatelli (180510 August 1876) was an Italian British cook, known for his cookery books popular in the Victorian era, such as '' The Modern Cook''.
Biography
Francatelli was born in London, of Italian descent, in 1805. He was ...
's 1852 recipe mentions "6
''d''. or 1
''s''." worth of any kind of cheap meat. This recipe was described as "English cooked-again stewed meat" (''lesso rifatto all'inglese'') or "toad in the Hole", in the first book of modern Italian cuisine,
which stressed that meat was to be leftover from stews and re-cooked in batter.
Name
The dish with leftover meat was originally not called toad in the hole. In the 1787 book ''A Provincial Glossary'', for example, it was referred to as "meat boiled in a crust". The first mention of the word "hole", outside of ''Pigeons in a Hole'' found in the cookbook by Hannah Glasse, appeared in the 1900 publication ''Notes & Queries'', which described the dish as a "batter-pudding with a hole in the middle containing meat".
Despite popular belief, there is no record of the dish ever being made with toad.
The origin of the name is unclear, but it may refer to the way toads wait for their prey in their burrows, making their heads visible in the earth, just like the sausages peep through the batter.
It may also derive from the "
entombed animal" phenomenon of live frogs or toads being found encased in stone, which was a scientific fad of the late 18th century.
See also
*
Corn dog
A corn dog (also spelled corndog) is a sausage (usually a hot dog) on a stick that has been coated in a thick layer of cornmeal batter and deep fried. It originated in the United States and is commonly found in American cuisine.
History
Newly ...
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English cuisine
English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but also shares much with wider British cuisine, partly through the importation of ingredients and ideas ...
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List of meat dishes
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List of sausage dishes
This is a list of notable sausage dishes, in which sausage is used as a primary ingredient or as a significant component of a dish.
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References
External links
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{{Use dmy dates, date=March 2017
English sausages
English cuisine
Meat dishes
Sausage dishes