Can anyone tell me what “toad in the hole” and “spotted dick” are? Also, are sultanas the same thing as golden raisins?
I made toad-in-the-hole once in seventh grade as an extra-credit assignment for a history class. It was this completely inedible pastry-with-pieces-of-undercooked-sausage-sticking-out thing. My family and I took one look at it, tried a nibble, and then ordered out for pizza. Whether it was my culinary skills (not improbable) or the recipe itself, we never tried to learn.
(I almost posted Military Intelligence, Compassionate Conservative, and Fiscally Responsible Liberal before I realized that this wasn’t a thread for oxymorons.)
Now, Tom. There’s a place for Bangers and Mash.
phouka
Be fair now, while it’s true that not everyone enjoys post-war British cuisine, the dish that you did not eat, was not toad in the hole, it was pastry with bits of undercooked sausage in it.
In Scotland, at least in recent years, we have had a splendid answer to the slurs raised against British cooking - we enjoy Scottish cooking. Although it may be a marketing invention, Scotland is full of ‘Auld Alliance’ style restaurants. The alliance refers to our long association with France, against the common enemy, England. The food is very French, with Scottish ingredients - venison, salmon, scallops.
Sadly, I have never seen any mention of the Auld Alliance anywhere in France, nor have any of my French colleagues ever heard of it. Good food though.
Russell
I’ve found that the further you get from London, the better English food gets (not to mention the beer).
I’ve had several memorable, though simply-prepared, meals in Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset. And a marvelous plate of lamb chops in a pub in Exmoor. Even the suspicion that I was probably eating roadkill didn’t sway me.
Uke
Tomndebb’s first link begins with this:
“I was fortunate enough in a recent epistular episode to get Spotted Dick out of Fanny. I know you’ll enjoy having Spotted Dick.”
I just can’t add anything to that.
Thanks for the links, Tom. BTW, I have no problem with British cuisine in general. My question was inspired by a scene in an episode of “Are You Being Served?” where everyone’s in the cafeteria talking about their orders, and I was just wondering what the dishes were.
(I once asked my advisor, a native son of England, the same questions while we were standing around in the hallway, waiting for a talk to begin. He couldn’t remember exactly what either were, and started thinking out loud - and I mean loud. “Let’s see, spotted dick. Gosh, it’s been such a long time since heard that name. Spotted dick, spotted dick…” Needless to say, the folks nearby who had no idea that we were discussing food cast a few astonished/repulsed glances and started moving away. I’m sure a couple were also wondering what the hell kind of conversation was going on between advisor and advisee. 
)
Any takers for an explanation of sultanas?
No problemo.
It’s a small, pale, golden-green grape from Smyrna, originally used for wine-making. Today it’s cultivated primarily for raisins. Its offspring in the US is known as the Thompson Seedless.
(Thanx and a tip of the hat to Barron’s Food Lover’s Companion.)
“Sultana” refers to the raisin from the sulatana grape, rather than the grape itself. It’s a small, seedless raisin. We have a Kellogg’s cereal called Sultana Bran which I think is called Raisin Bran in the US.
The thing surrounding the sausage in toad-in-the-hole is Yorkshire pudding, not pastry. It’s more like baked pancake batter. That may be where phouka went wrong.
I’ve never had any real brittish cuisine myself, but the Toad in a Hole recipe I learned as a child is quite different. A slice of buttered bread, with a hole cut out of the middle, toss it in a frying pan, and drop an egg in the middle. As a treat, you also fry up the hole and eat that while the egg is cooking. Yum-Yum.
I’ve always called that ‘egg in a frame’.
TMR
The fact that somewhere a camera is secretly pointed right up the business end of a toilet
and somewhere else someone is hacking a password so we can see it for free is all the thanks we need.
– From http://www.oldmanmurray.com
Tasty it may be, mate, but Toad in the Hole it is not.
Nice links, Tom. My next questions are these:
What is “mixed spice?” (Spotted Dick)
And what can I substiture for suet? (Ditto)
What is “caster sugar?” (Custard)
-andros-
andros,
from M-W:
Main Entry: castor sugar
Variant(s): or caster sugar
Function: noun
Etymology: caster
Date: 1855
chiefly British : finely granulated white sugar
mixed spice: (No idea. Allspice? random mixed spices? Some Brit cook will have to help us out, here.)
suet: I don’t know for sure. Try lard, perhaps, or a high-fat variety of not-heavily-spiced sausage or the fat you drained off the ground beef from your last meal of spaghetti or sloppy joes?
(Technically, suet is the fat from the posterior back region used in tallow. I only know it as the disgusting stuff that I put out to keep the woodpeckers alive through the winter. Your local butcher may have some for sale.)
Tom~
I followed tomndebb’s link and took the Toad in the Hole recipe home last night. I had to finagle the ingredients a little but the end result was actually pretty good. I can now say I have eaten a toad in the hole. (Standing back while they all jump on the presumed double entendre)
BTW what the hell is a European size 3 egg?
All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people.
My family always called these Bulls-Eyes. They’re my dad’s favorite breakfast. The holes are the best.
My wife, the Brit, confirms that mixed spice=allspice.
No, no, no! I thought this too until recently, but allspice is in fact “aromatic spice from dried unripe berry of W. Ind. tree” (OED) whereas mixed spice, as its name suggests, is a general mixture of baking spices. The one in my cupboard, I find consists of cinnnamon, nutmeg and allspice (McCormicks).
Mixed spice is Coriander, Cinnamon, Cassia, Ginger, Caraway, Nutmeg and Cloves- ground into a powder- used in cakes.
Toad in the hole- sausages (English) partially cooked in very hot fat and then covered in Yorkshire Pudding Batter (1/2 cup milk, 4 ounces flour, one egg, beaten well, left in fridge for two hours- lets the gluten develop) and cooked for a further 50 minutes in a hot oven.
Suet is the fat around (usually beef) kidneys. Used as a fat in suet pastry for suet puddings either savory- steak and kidney pudding) or sweet (spotted dick- suet puddding with raisins.