Retro Recipe: Mini Toads - Picnic Toad in the Hole / Yorkshire Pudding

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

I was having a look though and ancient directory on one of my backup drives, and I came across a bunch of old recipes from when I used to live in Barcelona, I always used to write down the ones that worked out! A well fed girlfriend is a happy girl friend I find. Well, it's one check box anyway!

We would often go up into the mountains for walks or to the beach (my favourite), usually a little further up the coast. Away far from heavy touristy bits of city. Pop a small kite up so we're easy to find on the beach when the others arrive and get down to the arduous business of sunbathing! 

After a good swim in the sea and a bit more of a sunbathe, grab a couple of beers from the nearest chiringito and crack open the picnic box. I don't think we ever came back with any of them left!! Soooo morish! Balance with a nice goats cheese and tomato salad. You know that, well, rather screw faced reaction you get when offering your friends kids (little feckers) food? Well you wont get one of those!!! 

They take 10mins to make. In it's simplest form the recipe goes: 1. whisk batter, 2.cut sausages, 3.bake. And it's a classic crowd pleaser, for BBQ buffet or for a picnic hamper, and they freeze too!

The batter is quite loose and it makes for a gloriously sticky mini toad in the hole, for less stickiness add more a touch more flour.

ingredients (makes 12)

for the mini toads

3 medium eggs

3 heaped tbsp flour

1/4 pint (~140g) milk 

2 tbsp olive oil

4 large good quality sausages

  (or 9 herbed mini bratvurst)

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix batter : )

salt to taste

apparatus / equipment

12 mould muffin tray.

method

Pre heat the oven to full blast ~230C

Make the batter: Mix the eggs, flour, sugar salt oil and milk until smooth.

Leave it to warm to room temp.

Evenly distribute the cut up sausage into the baking tray, 4 sausages into 12 pieces, 9 small sausages in 36 pieces.

Sizzling hot - the bater should start to cook on contact!

Add a small squirt of oil and put into the

oven until they are sizzling.

Once they're sizzling pour over the batter half filling each mould.

Bake 15mins - don't open the door before this!!!

Depending on your oven they'll take 15-25 minutes.

thinking ahead

You can make them when ever you want, and then freeze them.

When you wan to use them defrost them and pop then into the oven at 180C for 5mins

what could go wrong? 

You're impatient and you open the door early, and they sink leaving you with hockey puck with a sausage in the middle.

Solution, don't open the door before 15min.

to serve

Serve with a little ketchup or aioli or both, and a light salad. Or ahem, cough, thick onion gravy, buttery mash and cabbage or peas

variations

Why not try making a giant yorkshire pudding!! The trick hear is to get the quantity of mix to tin size right! 

No deeper than 1cm!!

A high sided tin will also guide and contain your yorkshire pudding. Which means it will contain your onion gravy!!

But not your excitement!! : )

Experiment: Lemon Biscotti (Angel Eyes, and Hell Boy pt II)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab  (check here for Angel Eyes, and Hell Boy pt I)

This recipe is a great way to introduce kids to cooking and what a result! A fantastic biscuit that looks hard to make but is simplicity itself!

At this point in my culinary career I'd not really made biscotti before, so it was basically a test run. Now I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm doing test runs I like to have tight control over ingredients, quantities, temperatures, times, shelves, pan types, etc. In other words, I want the result, be it a cricket bat, or the lightest crumbliest sublime biscuit, to be reproducible if nothing else!

So off I went to my friends in the country. What better fun than to make some biscotti with the kids? Or so I thought!

I prepped up the ingredients and got in my master sous chefs for a baking bonanza!

I'd forgotten how excitable youngsters can be - before I knew what was going on there were all sorts of things flying into the mixing bowl at completely inappropriate times, mixing spoons, nuts, what this? baking powder? let's have some! bosh!

Once I gave in to the concept that making biscotti with 2 youngsters, was NO place for the ordered kitchen mind of the ferdie, and just went with it, I had a great time and so did they! 

 

And I found out that this recipe will always give you something resembling a biscotti no matter what you do! It might also resemble a cricket bat, but hey, it'll be an edible cricket bat . . he . . he!

What's all this mess? -  err, uh, oh. . .

Uh ooh!! "Has he seen us?"

Meanwhile . . . back at the lab, a few test runs later . . .

ingredients (Serves 26 - 3 loaves)
150C/40m, slice loaves then 180C/15m turn once

for the lemon biscotti
35g butter
2 lemons (juice and zest)
3 eggs + 2 yolks
300g caster sugar
1 tbsp baking powder (15ml)
550g self raising flour
130g pecans
130g almonds

apparatus
baking tray
wire rack
microplane
juicer (manual is fine - or a fork)

lemon biscottis
Preheat oven G2 / 150C / 300F
Melt the butter and add the lemon juice and zest, warm until the butter is completely melted and set aside to infuse.

Mix the baking powder and flour, then add the nuts and mix further. You can use whichever nuts you like best.
In a separate bowl whisk eggs and sugar until lightly aerated, then add them to the flour and nut mixture. Stir in well.

You're now ready to make and bake the loaves - which is how the biscotti start life!
Divide the mix into 3 loaves and place in the oven on a lined baking sheet for 40 minutes.

Once they're golden, remove them from the oven on to a wire rack to cool. Turn the oven up to G4 / 180C / 350F. 

Once cool enough to handle cut the loaves into biscotti (1/2 inch / 1cm thick slices) and return to the oven on a lined baking tray. Bake them for 15 minutes turning once. It'll take less if you have fan assist on!

Happy munching! Don't forget if you put these in an airtight container they'll last for at least a week, and you can freeze the loaves and bake off a batch on the weekend or when guests come to visit; they suffuse the kitchen with an irresistible aroma.

what can go wrong?
I've got a lumpy dough! Grumos! As the spanish would say!! To avoid a lumpy mixture put your powders in the bowl and make a well. Using a wooden fork (better than a spoon since the liquids can flow through it) mix the flour in a circular motion, going around the outside of the liquid, combining it in bit by bit until it's one big, smooth mix.