Toad in the Hole – 30 years too late

Posted on November 7, 2023 by tenuoustoaster

Gosh! I haven’t posted on here for 2 years! A lot has happened, and I’ve cooked many many things from many new books – but somehow didn’t blog about it.

I’ve moved house (more on that some other time) and my job changed. I became so busy that I didn’t have time to enjoy what I enjoy the best – cooking and writing about it.

So, hopefully this reawakening post will see me jump into life and resume service as it was before 2021.

This toad in the hole is the first one I’ve ever made in my life. My mum always serves up Yorkshire pudding with every roast (without fail) but for some reason I’ve always decided it is beyond me! Until now! I’ve made 4 now – in as many months!.

Reality is, this is just hot oil, a batter, and don’t open the oven door! Obviously there’s a little more to it; you need some nice sausages and the perfect batter – and the perfect sized roasting tin. I used lincolnshire sausages for this one and I fried them off a bit before adding the batter. Lots of people suggest you add them uncooked but personally I can’t see how they will cook for long enough if you do that!

Add a nice onion gravy and this is a meal that needs no accompanyment.

Adios ! I’ll be back.

Baked Eggs with Feta, Harissa and Tomato Sauce & Coriander

Posted on June 5, 2015 by tenuoustoaster

Another amazing dish from Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour. We had this before we went to Morocco; part of a week where we thought we’d try out the types of food we were likely to eat while we were on holiday. Sadly stuff like this was nowhere to be found.

It’s an incredibly tasty dish and, although it is supposedly what people eat for breakfast, it was a main meal for us. I should knock one of these up the morning before our next Monopoly Board Pub Crawl (we are well over half way !).

Our local Syrian supermarket has fresh feta. Its far superior to the stuff you get in packets, much smoother and it matures if you keep it a couple of days. We buy it a lot and it often ends up in this recipe (as well as the pistachio dip) – I’ve made them both many times.

It’s very simple to make but does take a while if you want your sauce to be rich and your eggs well baked.

The sauce isn’t unlike most tomato based curry sauces. You fry some red onions, add lots of garlic, stir in turmeric, cumin, coriander and cinnamon and then the harissa paste. Once the onions are well coated add both tinned and fresh tomatoes, and simmer for 20 minutes or so. Very simple.

Pour this sauce into a shallow ovenproof dish and break chunks of feta into the sauce, and stir in lots of coriander.

Then make four wells in the sauce, crack eggs into the wells, season with pepper and bake in the oven until the eggs are cooked to your liking.

I like recipes like this because you don’t have to paw over them for ages. It can be a one pot creation if you start your sauce in the right dish. First time round I doubled my washing up by not planning properly.

The recipe recommends eating this with flatbreads, which we did. Mopping up that awesome tomato sauce was very satisfying.

Herby Omelette Thingies

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Funny name for this granted – its kind of an omelette, kind of a frittata.

I knocked this up on Monday when Freya said she was hungry and it was way too late to eat. The cupboards were pretty bare but I knew I had the ingredients for this and it was very quick and easy to make.

I’m not convinced the recipe in the book is the smartest way to make this. Basically, you fry some herbs in butter/oil and after a short while you pour a batter of eggs, flour and baking powder over the top and cook on low for 10 mins until the eggs set.

The problem with this is the herbs will burn. They get trapped under the eggs – get all the direct heat and lose all their flavour and don’t look at all appetising. The herbs lost a lot of their flavour too.

The picture I’ve taken with this was my take on the same dish. I can’t see the point of frying fresh herbs – so I make the recipe differently as follows: