I used to be poor, not homeless poor, but barely getting by and food was a little difficult to come by some days. One day I found some sausage in the freezer and remembered the old British dish that was popular during WWII called Toad In A Hole.
Essentially the dish is sausage cooked in a yorkshire pudding. It’s a quite filling dish and easy to make. I only needed to feed myself so I ended up creating my own riff on the Toad In A Hole which quickly became nicknamed after a certain comedy music video. Later I posted a picture of it on Facebook making a little joke about naming it Theon after the character in Game of Thrones who had a certain part of his body removed. What I didn’t realize was that my FaceBook post got posted to Twitter and then it started to turn into a little meme with the GoT’s fans. It has since started to be referred to by Theon’s surname of Greyjoy.
Now that people are talking about my little meal I put together I realized that after writing my story about my thoughts on $4 Toast that someone might steal this idea from me. So I’ve decided to explain my little riff on this dish before you can see it on menu’s around San Francisco for $25 when it really is one of the most stupidly easy dishes to make. Here’s how it goes…
First you’ll need a good sausage. Don’t use hot dogs. I’ve tried Italian sausage, but the fennel doesn’t seem to taste right. Typically a pork sausage or something with some extra spice like a chicken with garlic sausage. I’ve tried a lot of sausages and some of them that I thought would work don’t so you’ll have to experiment. Now first you’ll have to make your batter.
Batter
I take 1 egg, a half cup of flour and a half cut of milk and beat the hell out of it with a whisk. Add seasoning and here’s where I’ll leave it up to you. You want the batter to be a bit savory, but I’ll let you figure it out. I’ve got my own combination of things I use to give it flavor and I’m not telling. When you’re done put it in the fridge. You can let it set for a few minutes to overnight even so if you’re going to make a lot of them you can plan ahead.
Sausage & Cooking
I used a 5.75″ x 3″ pan which is the perfect size grease up the pan with olive oil or butter and get the sausage good and coated and throw it into a 450° oven for 5 minutes. Pull it out and pour the batter over it and put it back in the oven for 20 minutes. You’re done.
That’s really all there is to it. It looks a bit like a misshapen hot dog, but tastes a lot better and will fed a guy’s hunger easily. The yorkshire pudding fills out the dish so that you don’t need to eat a lot more than you really need. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and even figured out a way that if I owned a restaurant how to throw it together quick enough to serve up to customers without them having to wait a long time. Since the recipe is so simple you can easily adapt it in many different ways.
So if you happen to be in a restaurant in San Francisco in the near future and see a toad in a hole or greyjoy on the menu you’ll know who’s responsible for it. Now pop it your mouth!
