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Toad-in-the-hole

A baked dish of beef pieces in a batter of flour, milk, and egg.

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

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, milk, egg, and salt to create a smooth batter.

  3. In a Yorkshire pudding tin, melt enough dripping to cover the bottom.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour about one-third of the batter into the tin and bake until set.

  2. Add the beef steak and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour the remaining batter over the beef.

  4. Bake quickly until risen and set, then reduce the heat and cook until the meat is fully cooked.

  5. Cut into squares and serve 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 structure of the batter, which sets and holds the risen shape when baked.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm as it cooks.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that turns the flour into a batter that puffs and browns in the oven.
Beef steak
Forms the main filling, cooking through in the oven under the set batter.

The step that matters

Heat the dripping until very hot before the first batter goes in. Hot fat begins cooking the underside of the batter immediately, setting it quickly so it rises and crisps instead of soaking up grease and sinking.

“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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