So me and my family try and eat meat-free at least 2 or 3 times a week and look, I love it,
it's really great. We can have this adventure with veggies, and these beautiful portobello mushrooms
if you give them a bit of love and care, the depth of flavour you get from these is incredible.
So let's do it. A great little family favorite dish, toad in the hole, right? Yorkie puddings,
with the sausage with the onion gravy, but how about we do one with mushrooms? Mushroom toad
in the hole with the gravy, it's amazing. So first things first let's get the batter going, so 4 big
free-range eggs. And give the eggs a good beat, really get the air in there. Nice pinch of salt.
And then go in with 175 grams of plain flour and 175 millilitres of good whole milk. Then,
2 tablespoons of water. And actually that water is a little bit more important than you might think
because it's a reaction between the water and the hot tray and oil that gives you that lift. So...
one. Two. Give that a nice little whisk-up and put that to the side. So next job, the mushrooms.
4 portobello mushrooms right? You can get these everywhere. But how can we make these incredibly
delicious? Just take the skin off, so just peel it. And by doing this you're just opening up the
mushroom to take on more flavour. And also these lovely bits of skin here, these help make the
best gravy they're full of flavour right? So we'll just put them to the side. And while you're doing
it just enjoy it it's weirdly therapeutic, it's like a stress ball. When I was a little kid I used
to have a BMX and it used to have mushroom grips that looked just like that and they were so comfy.
And I always think of that when I do this. So get yourself a nice big tray, high sides. Put these
mushrooms in. Give them a basic seasoning with olive oil. A little salt and pepper. Rub that
around the cap of the mushroom and we're going to keep it cap side down, and then when I roast that
in the oven basically it's going to intensify and concentrate the mushroom flavour and then
on the inside you'll get a little pool of like little stock which is going to make it really
juicy as well in the middle. So half an hour at 200 degrees Celsius which is 400 Fahrenheit.
And just let a little bit of time do a lot of the flavour work for you. Let me just wash my hands.
Right next, gravy. So 2 onions, just take the end off and then finely slice it.
This is going to be a really nice chunky onion gravy, and onion gravy it's just one of those
brilliant sauces that you can have with your pie, a steak, and of course for toad in the hole - or
mushroom in the hole - amazing. Now if you think back to the old Yorkshire puddings they would have
always given you a big old Yorkshire pudding with gravy first, you know you could have had it in the
pub, at home. And the idea I'm told is that they fill you up and then when the meat comes out you
don't need too much of it because the meat, of course still is, expensive it's the most
expensive part of the meal. So if you're wanting something comforting, beautiful, something that
makes people happy, fills you up, then you're gonna want to have a go at this. So in the pan
on a medium heat go in with two tablespoons of oil. Grab a couple of sprigs of rosemary,
now rosemary is one of my favourite herbs, it has the incredible ability to give you a feeling
of meat, savouriness. It's so connected with things like steak, beef, lamb y'know,
when you do it with the mushrooms it just kind of works. So by putting the rosemary
in the oil first you get that crispiness you get that fragrance and the natural oils
coming out of the rosemary. Then in with the onions, smells great already. Don't forget now
these little skins, delicious things don't always come in beautiful packages, a bit of old mushroom
skin that's big flavour. So I'm just going to slice it up and then in we go, you will
not regret putting that in there. You don't want to waste anything either so that's good vibes.
At this stage I'm going to let that cook for about 15 minutes or so on a medium-low heat stirring
it every now and again. Don't rush it get that sweet, soft, and get that caramelisation going.
Okay so the mushrooms they're nearly there, the onions have cooked down beautifully. So I'm going
to just turn it up a little bit now and then I'm going to introduce a little bit of booze. Now for
me, gravy. You know it can go a few different directions you could put red wine in there,
but I'm putting some porter which is a beautiful dark ale, smooth, chocolatey, and that's going
to be amazing with the sweet onions. I'm going to use about 250 millilitres. So half of it for that,
half of this for me, and two tablespoons of red wine vinegar and that's going to give it
the ability to really cut through the richness of the Yorkshire pudding batter. Beautiful.
Boil that up and really reduce that porter. The great thing about that is you kind of take away
any sense of alcohol and what's going to be left is just deep, sweet, and really smooth,
we want that in a gravy. Now I'm going to do a little dressing for the mushrooms to make them
really really tasty, so 2 more sprigs of rosemary. Pull the rosemary off the stalk and I'm doing it
now because I want to have lighter more fragrant flavours than if I put it in at the beginning.
Then two cloves of garlic now just do the best you can to do some nice thin slices
and we're going to scatter that over the beautiful open cup of those portobello mushrooms. A
little bit of olive oil and that will send those slices of garlic really beautifully even golden,
and those lovely bits of rosemary will go crispy like little crisps, fantastic. So look that's our
little sprinkle, what I want to do now is get in there and get the yorkie going. I've got my lovely
batter that's ready and raring to go, so let's get these out. It smells incredible. Now what's
really nice to do with these mushrooms is you can just take them out one by one and pour that stock
into our gravy, you will not regret doing that, really really nice. So that's what I mean you
know you start concentrating on one ingredient like a mushroom, how can I drag out the best of
flavour and the best of texture? And here we are getting all kinds of flavours out the mushroom,
now back in here we're going to go in with our batter and then place our mushrooms back on top,
and sprinkle over our rosemary and our garlic and if it goes in to the batter that's fine.
Back in the oven for 25 minutes at the same temperature, close the door, and don't even
look again don't look again it's too stressful. We want it to go lifty and light and gorgeous.
Now if you look in the pan can you see how already this has reduced? So add a little bit of flour,
about a heaped tablespoon,
and stir it in. And then about 700 millilitres of water. Check the seasoning.
And you can reduce this to the consistency that you so love, a bit thinner fine, bit thicker fine.
But that my friends will be an amazing gravy.
Okay, so we're nearly there. The gravy is just blipping away looking thick and delicious. I've
got some lovely sprouting broccoli. And I am going to feed my boy Buddy because Jools and the girls
are out. Okay Buds, are you ready for dinner? Yeah. Are you hungry? Yes. Here's a knife and
fork, there you go so you excited? Yeah. This my friend is mushroom in the hole. It's a big
mushroom. What's the stuff holding the mushroom? That my friend is Yorkshire pudding. Ooh!
Should we do this? Yes. I am looking forward to the Yorkshire pudding. I just love the
way it just tears off. Let's go in with your gravy. It's a lot of gravy. Shall we have a go?
Ow. Blow it.
That's really good. What do you think Buds? It's really nice. The mushrooms are really
meaty aren't they? Gravy's just got like loads of flavour. It's just a joyful thing. Don't tell mum
that we're standing up here having dinner. I feel like I should pick it up and have
a little mop-up. I agree. Permission to use hands Buddy. Thank you! Have a little mop-up.