Sausage & Onion Toad-in-the-Hole

Ingredients

• 8 pork sausages
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 175g plain flour
• 3 large eggs
• 300ml milk, cold
• sea salt & black pepper, to season
• 25g unsalted butter
• 2 large onions, thinly sliced
• 200ml beef stock
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 10g flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• Buttered peas and greens, to serve
• Dressed green salad, to serve

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan)/Gas 7. Pour the vegetable oil into a roasting tin and slide it into the oven until smoking hot, about 8 minutes — the tin needs to be screaming when the batter hits, or it won't rise.
2. While the tin heats, whisk the flour, eggs, milk and a generous pinch of salt and pepper until completely smooth — the batter should be the consistency of double cream. Rest it on the counter for 10 minutes; resting relaxes the gluten and gives you a taller rise.
3. Heat a heavy frying pan over medium-high. Brown the sausages in two batches if your pan is small — crowd them and they'll steam instead of colour, and you want proper deep brown all over, about 5 minutes. They shouldn't be cooked through; the oven finishes them.
4. Transfer the browned sausages straight into the hot oil in the roasting tin and roast for 10 minutes until they sizzle hard and the colour deepens further.
5. Pour the rested batter evenly around the sausages in the screaming-hot tin and return to the oven. Bake for 25–30 minutes until risen, deep golden and crisp at the edges, the centre springy to the touch. Don't open the oven before 25 minutes — the cold air drop will collapse it.
6. While the toad bakes, melt the butter in a frying pan over low-medium heat and add the onions with a pinch of salt. Cook slowly, stirring now and then, until richly caramelised and jammy, about 15 minutes — low and slow is the only way; rush them and they'll scorch instead of going sweet. If the pan looks dry near the end, sprinkle in a teaspoon of flour and cook a minute more to take the raw edge off.
7. Pour in the beef stock and Worcestershire sauce, scraping up any sticky bits from the bottom of the pan — that's where the flavour lives. Simmer until thickened to a glossy coating consistency, 3–4 minutes. Taste, season, taste again — adjust the salt and pepper now, not at the table.
8. Cut the toad-in-the-hole into generous squares, spoon the jammy onion gravy over the top and scatter with chopped parsley and a crack of black pepper.