Toad in the Hole - Easy Cold Oven Method - Food Wishes

[Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with toad in the hole that's right you know something with a delicious sounding name like toad in the hole is going to be good and this truly is but while the recipe is very simple the classic method for making this really is not which is why as usual i tried to develop a much safer easier and simpler method which as you'll see went very very well it came out virtually identical to the traditional way including that it looks nothing like a toad in the hole so with that let's go ahead and get started by mixing up this very simple batter which will start with four large whole eggs and we're going to want to season those up with some kosher salt some freshly ground black pepper and exactly two shakes of cayenne which i do not believe is included in the original recipe for what's basically a yorkshire pudding batter and that's it one season we'll go ahead and dump in our flour as well as our milk at which point we'll take a whisk and mix this very thoroughly until there's no lumps and the first thing that makes my version easier than the classic method is that there you'd have to add the flour a little bit at a time since apparently that's going to prevent you from getting lumps but what's also true is you can add it all at once like i just did and simply whisk it until there's no more lumps and by the way i recently watched a fairly famous british chef who has a very french name and he was adamant that you have to add the flour like a few teaspoons at a time otherwise he warned you're definitely gonna get lumps well you know what i really do hope he watches this video because that is simply not true so instead of the five minutes he spent i just spent like one minute whisking enthusiastically and ended up with as you can see a very smooth batter to which we will now add the final ingredient a small splash of cold fresh water and we'll go ahead and whisk that in and yes we could have added that water with the milk but speaking of lumps the thicker your mixture the easier it is to whisk all those out so for that reason i like to add the water at the end and then all we'll do here is cover this and let it sit out resting at room temp for ideally about an hour although if you do use it sooner it will still work and then once that's set we can move on to browning our sausage which we're going to do in a generous amount of vegetable oil and a skillet set over medium-high heat and yes i did find some british style bangers but really any pork based sausage i think will work beautifully and i'm sorry about the appearance on this third one it kind of got smashed in the package and ended up looking fairly amphibious but all's well that ends well and as it browned it took on a much less disturbing shape but anyway we'll go ahead and brown these up in about a quarter cup of oil and not just to get some nice color on the sausage but also to infuse the oil with all this porky goodness and since these are going to bake with our batter we are not cooking them all the way through right we're just going to brown them for two or three minutes on each side and i'm not sure what was going on with these but they seem to be popping and spitting and splattering a lot more than usual and by the way no that's not why these are called bangers and i'm going to let you search and figure out why they're actually called that but anyway the point is it messed up my entire stove top since when i'm filming i generally don't use those mesh splash guards so as soon as i had both size brown i remove those from the heat and i transfer those into my baking dish making sure they were nice and evenly spaced and once they are we'll go ahead and dump over all our sausage-infused oil at which point we're going to want to grab a pastry brush preferably an easy to wash silicone one and we'll make sure the inside of our baking dish all the way up to the top is coated in that delicious grease and i should mention i'm using vegetable oil but a rendered animal fat like lard will be more traditional or if you want you could use clarified butter here alright so if you're not into a partially plant-based toad in the hole you could go that direction if you want i mean you are after all the queen liz of your toad in the hole biz but i find as long as you brown the sausage in it the vegetable oil works fine and then once that's been accomplished we'll set it aside and we will start on our very quick and easy onion gravy which begins by melting a couple tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat in the same pan we used to brown our sausage and then to the butter we will add one large diced red onion or any color onion but i find the red makes the best looking gravy and we'll also want to add a nice big pinch of salt and what we'll do is saute these onions on medium high heat for about five or six minutes or until they turn nice and soft and sweet and start to brown up and take on some beautiful color and if you're not into danger and excitement you can make this gravy ahead of time but what i like to do is start it and then finish it while the toad in the hole is baking in the oven which i think is going to make this experience a lot more thrilling so once we have our onions on the stove cooking we'll go ahead and pour our batter into our well greased baking dish which i like to do without getting it on the sausage even though that won't make any difference all right i just do it that way to sort of play a game with myself which i almost won oh and speaking of winning we are pouring this batter into cold fat in a cold dish which we are then going to transfer into a cold oven which is way way different than the traditional method where we would place our grease pan into an oven until it's smoking hot at which point we'd open the oven and quickly try to pour in the batter while attempting not to burn ourselves and not get splattered and that is quite the messy stressful and possibly dangerous scene which we are completely gonna avoid doing it this way so as promised once that batter has been poured in we'll go ahead and place this into the center of a cold turned off oven and then as soon as we close the door we'll go ahead and turn our oven up to 500 degrees and we will set our timer for 30 minutes at which point our toad in the hole should look like well i will show you as soon as we finish our gravy and hopefully by now our onions look a little something like this which mine do and once we're happy with those we can go ahead and stir in our flour and we'll cook it for about two minutes or so just so it loses that raw pasty flavor and once we have cooked what is basically now a roux we are ready to add a couple cups of chicken broth and as you may be able to tell by the color this is not some beautiful homemade stock or broth this should be made with some nice high quality chicken base or boolean cubes and that is just how it's done but regardless we'll go ahead and whisk that in and we will wait for that to come back to the simmer and as that happens you should see this thicken up beautifully and that's basically it all we need to do is let this simmer for about five minutes or so during which time it's going to reduce and continue to thicken up and while that's simmering we can add the last couple ingredients which would be a few dashes of worcestershire sauce and then my one and only secret ingredient a small splash of balsamic vinegar which i find blends beautifully with the sweetness of those onions as well as making the color of our sauce even more brown and beautiful so we will stir that in and after simmering and reducing for about five minutes our gravy should be done and we can reduce the heat to low and then if we want to finish it with a little bit of sliced green onion just for a little bit of color and a touch of that fresh green onion flavor and that's it our onion gravy is ready to serve after of course we taste for seasoning but you knew that and if everything goes according to plan our 30 minute timer just rang and we can pull our toad in the hole out of the oven and oh my goodness look at that and sure you might be thinking i thought it was called toad in the hole not towed on top of the hole well let me explain if you use traditional bangers which are much shorter and fatter they're probably going to stay lower down in the batter than these which were a little bit long and thin but don't worry we can just push those down into our pudding for a little more traditional look but if we're being honest even the classic version doesn't look like toad in the hole i mean it's more like toad in the hammock but anyway before anyone notices let's go ahead and smother those sausages with some of our freshly made onion gravy and maybe finish up with some more green onions or in my case if you have them some freshly snipped chives and while it's probably true that if you use the more dangerous messier more complicated way more stressful traditional method you'll probably have a little more of that pudding puffing up in the center and around the sausage but considering how much easier and simpler this method is i am perfectly happy with what you're seeing here but anyway once garnish will go ahead and serve this up which reminds me this was an experiment and i thought that dish had plenty of grease but in the spirit of full disclosure it did actually stick a little bit so what we should probably do is grease the dish with cold butter first and then pour in our oil as shown so i'll try it that way next time but it really wasn't that bad and i managed to get that on a plate next to some baby greens and of course we're definitely going to want to serve it with some extra gravy and maybe another pinch of chives and yes i did want to pick that up and eat it like a hot dog but i decided to be a little more civilized and grabbed a fork and knife and that my friend's cold oven cheater method aside was absolutely scrumptious in every way and if you're a fan of the dutch baby this is nothing more than a very savory version of that or give or take a little sugar and vanilla it's basically the same batter and above and beyond the obviously amazing flavors the textural contrast between those crispy puffed edges and the softer tender inside parts with that beautiful fatty sausage and silky gravy is just a wonder to behold oh and speaking of the onion gravy even if you have no intention of making the toad or the hole do yourself a favor and make a batch of this gravy and i'm not even going to bother telling you what it's good on besides this although i will give you a hint until he hits everything but having said that if you are going to enjoy it i really do hope it's on this especially now since i just showed you such an easy way to make it and whether you end up doing this with traditional british bangers or some other kind of sausage i really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 560,030

Keywords: Toad, Hole, sausage, breakfast, brunch, british, pancake, onion, gravy, recipe, chef, john, food, wishes, cooking, holiday, easy, cold, oven

Id: KY6vGU8SK7U

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021