Toad

At some point last week, it was toad-in-the-hole time, something which we used to take fairly regularly and has recently come back onto the menu. On this occasion the batter rose very well, spot on even. Helped along, I am told, by adding a little fat to the pan to compensate for the sausages being described as 'lite', which we take to mean low fat.

BH was also seduced by a celebrity cook book, one those cookbooks where the cooks write as if they got commission according to the number of ingredients, in this case suggesting adding a spoon of mixed dried herbs to the batter. Herbs which rose to the surface during the cooking, giving the crust a little extra something. Not unpleasant, not taking away from the overall success of the dish, but perhaps a little extra something we shall manage without on the next occasion.

The sausages came from Sainsbury's and I thought they were something called 'Porky Lites' in a six pack, a lite version of something else called 'Porky Whites'. Oddly, the latter appears on their web site, the former doesn't. Oddly also, Porky White used to operate out of a shed at the back of a bungalow on the Chessington Road, not far from Hook Road Arena. A shed from which he used to sell pork sausages and other pork products. Maybe he even killed his own pigs there. He certainly used to supply sausages to the Marquis of Granby, before the chains got to it, where they were turned into excellent sausage rolls, that is to say bread rolls with a sausages inside, sold on Derby Days and other important occasions.

I suppose when he retired or died, his name and brand was sold to Sainsbury's. So he has a memorial of sorts, even if the sausages, while better than average, are not as good as they were in his day.

PS: checking, I find a fair bit of toad in the hole fifteen years ago, as per reference 1. Just the one mention in psmv2, and another in psmv3 - although this does not really count, being a pub grub job. In the course of which I find that psm2 is a private blog, possibly central European, while psmv is a prayer blog: 'this blogspot has been created for the purpose of the Pray Santa Maria Valley churches to post their community prayer events for the benefit of other members'.

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=toad+hole.