Today’s dinner was a British classic, toad in the hole:

No toads are harmed in the making of this dish which, at it’s most basic, is simply sausage baked in a batter. As you can see from the photo above, we went a little more elaborate and managed to make it meat, two veg and carbohydrate in one dish.

To start with, I put the sausages in the oven in the dish with a cube of goose fat. I don’t think you get a particular benefit from the goose fat but extra oil helps the batter cook without sticking to the dish too much. Speaking of which, the batter was made with a couple of eggs and some milk whisked together and then plain flour added and mixed in a spoonful at a time until the mixture was quite thick although still pourable. The whisk, spun back and forward in my hands as if I was trying to start a fire, is a good manual way of mixing, combined with a long spoon to occasionally run round the corners of the pot I mixed in and ensure none of the flour was left dry.

As the sausages picked up some colour, I turned them and, when the other side was also starting to brown, I was ready to assemble everything, out of the oven on a heat proof trivet. I used scissors to chop up the sausages into chunks and added left over kale from last night’s dinner and some cherry tomatoes. That all got mixed round and seasoned with salt and pepper. I then added the batter – a small portion at first, mixed round to coat everything and then the rest poured over the top. You don’t want it cooling too much at this stage so I had everything ready and then the dish went straight back in the oven until it was starting to look brown on top.

Then it was out and onto the stove top for a five minute rest before serving and enjoying.