Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Medium roasting tin (approximately 25 by 30cm)
• •Large mixing bowl and whisk
• •Heavy-bottomed frying pan for the onion gravy
• •Pouring jug for batter

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the batter

   Tip the flour into a large bowl with a good pinch of salt. Make a well in the centre. Crack in the eggs and pour in a splash of the milk. Whisk from the middle outwards, pulling flour from the edges as you go, adding the rest of the milk gradually until you have a smooth, thin batter with no lumps. It should be about the consistency of single cream. Pour it into a jug, cover, and leave it to rest for at least thirty minutes. An hour is better. The batter needs this time. Don't skip it.

   Room temperature ingredients make a better batter. Take the eggs and milk out of the fridge when you start thinking about dinner, not when you start making it.
2. 2

   Start the onion gravy

   While the batter rests, melt the butter in a heavy pan over a low heat. Add the onions and a pinch of salt. Stir them through the butter, then let them be. This takes thirty minutes, sometimes forty. You want them soft, collapsed, and a deep sticky amber. Stir now and then, but mostly leave them alone. The worst thing you can do to onions is rush them. When they smell sweet and look jammy, stir in the tablespoon of flour and cook for a minute. Pour in the stock gradually, stirring as you go. Add the mustard, the Worcestershire sauce, and the thyme leaves stripped from their stalks. Let it simmer gently while the toad cooks. It will thicken as it goes. Season and taste. Then taste again.

3. 3

   Heat the tin and brown the sausages

   Set the oven to 220C/200C fan. Put the dripping or oil into a medium roasting tin, about 25 by 30 centimetres, and place it in the oven. Give it ten minutes to get properly, fiercely hot. While the tin heats, brown the sausages in a dry frying pan over a medium heat. You don't need to cook them through, just give them some colour all over. When the tin is smoking hot, carefully lay the browned sausages in the fat, spacing them apart.

   The fat must be smoking. Not warm. Not hot. Smoking. This is the single most important moment of the whole dish. If the fat isn't hot enough, the batter will sit, sag, and never rise. Give it the heat it needs.
4. 4

   Pour the batter and bake

   Give the rested batter a brief stir, then pour it quickly into the hot tin around the sausages. Don't hesitate and don't rearrange anything. Close the oven door immediately. Bake for thirty to thirty-five minutes. Do not open the oven for the first twenty-five minutes. Not to check on it. Not to peek. Not for any reason. The batter needs that uninterrupted blast of heat to puff and rise. When it's done, the pudding will be deeply golden, risen dramatically at the edges, and slightly less puffed in the middle where the sausages sit. The sausages should be bronzed and splitting slightly at the seams.

5. 5

   Serve with gravy

   Bring the whole tin to the table. It looks best while it's still slightly puffed, though it will settle within a minute or two. Cut generous portions, making sure everyone gets sausages and a good amount of the crisp, golden batter. Pour the onion gravy over everything. Serve with greens: steamed cabbage, wilted kale, whatever the season gives you. This isn't a dish that needs much else.

Chef Tips

• •The sausages are everything. Find a butcher who makes their own, with a high pork content and a natural casing. Cumberland, Lincolnshire, or a good herbed sausage all work well. What won't work is anything that lists water as a main ingredient. If you squeeze a sausage and it feels loose, put it back.
• •Beef dripping gives the best flavour and the best rise. It's what your grandmother would have used, and she was right. If you can't get dripping, sunflower oil works, but avoid olive oil here. The smoke point is too low and the flavour fights with the batter.
• •The batter must rest. Thirty minutes at a minimum, an hour if you can manage it. This isn't superstition. Resting lets the flour hydrate fully and the gluten relax, which is what gives you that rise and that crispness at the edges. Impatience here costs you the best part of the dish.
• •Serve this the moment it comes from the oven. A toad in the hole that sits on the counter deflates and turns sad. Bring the tin to the table while the batter is still slightly puffed and the kitchen smells like the kind of evening you want to stay in for.

Advance Preparation

• •The batter can be made and rested in the fridge for up to twenty-four hours ahead. Give it a stir before pouring.
• •The onion gravy can be made a day in advance and reheated gently. It improves overnight as the flavours settle.
• •The toad itself must be baked and served immediately. This is not a dish that reheats well. The glory is in the fresh rise.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 390g)