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Toad-in-the-hole

A British dish of battered beef pieces baked in a Yorkshire pudding tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Toad-in-the-hole

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the flour, milk, egg, and a little salt into a smooth batter.

Bake and serve

  1. In a Yorkshire pudding tin, add enough dripping to cover the bottom when melted.

  2. Pour in about half of the batter and bake until set.

  3. Add the seasoned meat, then pour in the remaining batter.

  4. Bake quickly until risen and set, then reduce heat and bake until cooked through.

  5. Serve in squares, arranged neatly on a hot 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. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 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 batter structure that sets and rises around the meat as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm while adding structure to the pudding.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and richness to the batter.
Beef steak
Provides the main meat, which cooks through in the batter during the final bake.
Dripping
Heats in the tin to give the batter a crisp, browned base and prevent sticking.

The step that matters

Bake quickly until risen and set, then reduce heat and bake until cooked through.. The tin must be very hot with melted fat before the batter goes in, so the batter rises and sets quickly. Cooler fat or a slow start leads to a flat, greasy pudding rather than a light, crisp one.

“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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