Name: Toad-in-the-hole
Ingredients: 1 cup flour; Pepper; Salt; 1 pound lamb chops or beefsteak; 1 egg; 1 cup milk

Why it works: Pepper and lamb are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,165 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, 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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Butter a pudding dish generously.

Make the batter

In a bowl, beat the egg thoroughly, then add the milk and stir in the flour until the mixture resembles cake batter.

Bake

Place the lamb chops or beefsteak in the dish and sprinkle with pepper and salt.
Pour the batter over the meat and bake for 1 hour.
Alternatively, cut the steak into small pieces, season, stir into the batter, and bake.

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.

Pepper + lambtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lamb + milktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 batter's structure, setting into a light, cake-like base as it bakes.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps it set and rise as it bakes.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps the batter bake to a tender, cake-like texture.
Lamb chops or beefsteak: Provides the meat that the batter bakes around, adding savory flavor and fat.

“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.