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Toad-in-the-hole

A baked batter with cold mutton slices and kidneys.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Toad-in-the-hole

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Make a smooth batter by mixing flour, milk, and eggs.

Assemble

  1. Butter a baking dish and pour in the batter.

  2. Add the seasoned slices of cold mutton and cut kidneys into small pieces.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 1 hour at 400°F (200°C) until set.

  2. Serve in the baking dish.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the batter that sets around the meat as it bakes.
Eggs
Set during baking, binding the batter and helping it rise and firm up.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it spreads and cooks through softly.
Cold mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and richness in the baked batter.
Kidneys
Adds a rich, savoury, slightly earthy flavour through the pudding.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a hot, buttered dish. The batter is poured into a buttered dish as described; the record does not say the dish is preheated, so no preheating is stated. The batter must be smooth and fully mixed beforehand, since lumps of flour will not set evenly as the eggs and starch cook in the oven.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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