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Toad in a Hole

A baked dish of cold meat pieces covered in a beaten egg, milk, and flour batter, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Toad in a Hole

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a baking dish with butter.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg and gradually mix in the milk.

  2. Sift the flour into the egg and milk mixture, stirring continuously.

  3. Add pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cold meat pieces in the greased baking dish.

  2. Pour the batter over the meat.

  3. Bake for 1 hour until golden and puffed.

  4. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 batter structure that sets around the meat and puffs as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it rise and set into a firm, custard-like crust.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the batter brown and puff in the hot oven.
Cold meat
Provides the main filling and flavour that the batter bakes around.

The step that matters

Pour the batter over the meat into a very hot greased dish. The batter must be poured into a hot, greased dish so it sizzles on contact and starts setting at once. A cold dish or a thin batter can lead to a flat, soggy result instead of a puffed, golden crust.

“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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