Sainsbury's Toad In The Hole (Sainsbury's Toad In The Hole)

Member Name: GentleGenius

Product:	Sainsbury's Toad In The Hole
Date:	17/07/08 (280 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Despite their not very nice appearance, the sausages were good

Disadvantages: Chewy, too eggy, sticks to the container, doesn't resemble yorkshire pudding at all

Nutritional Information:

Cals per pack: 457
Fat per pack: 22.4g
Sugars per pack: 5.3g
Salt per pack: 2.48g
Saturated fat per pack: 8.2g
Pack weights 250g

Contains no hydrogenated fats, artificial colours or flavours.

In small letters on one edge of the pack, it says "Allergy advice: Contains milk, egg & wheat gluten"

Cost: £1 each

I am a great lover of toad-in-the-hole, yet whenever I try to cook it myself, it just turns into a sodden mess. I also am trying to watch the pennies right now, and at £1....which is between 20p and 40p cheaper than other brands of ready-made toad-in-the-hole meals that I personally have seen, I thought I'd give the Sainsbury's version a try.

For the most part, I have always found Sainsbury's own brand of food very good, and hoped this would be no exception.

The packaging is quite attractive, with a picture of a sumptious-looking cooked toad-in-the-hole on the front. Sainsbury's describe the meal as, and I quote, "...3 pork sausages in a light and crispy batter..." and that sounded fine by me. I decided to have it with a jacket potato and green vegetables.

Inside the cardboard outer packaging, the frozen toad-in-the-hole was nestling in a black oven-proof plastic container covered with a removable transparent topping. Obeying the instructions on the outer box, I attempted to remove this transparent topping before putting it in the oven, and found that it was stuck fast. I had to attack the film with scissors in order to get rid of it completely which I found very irritating, but considered it a small price to pay if the cooked end product was as delicious as it promised to be.

During the cooking time, the toad-in-the-hole gave off a delicious and inviting aroma, and my mouth began to water.

When it was ready, I opened the oven door and noticed that the yorkshire pudding hadn't risen much, but wasn't too bothered as I thought if it tasted good, then that was all I really cared about.

I tweaked the sides of the black plastic container, expecting the toad-in-the-hole to easily slip out onto my plate, but it was stuck fast. Undaunted, I merely reached for a metal spatula which I use for these sorts of circumstances, and tried to wedge it under the yorkshire pudding, using a scraping motion......without success! The whole pudding was literally welded to the bottom of the plastic container, and it took me almost ten minutes (using levels of physical energy far greater than what ought to be the requirement for such a task) to scrape it all out of the container and onto my plate.

The fact that the pudding was now on my plate in tatters aside, I found its general appearance had transformed while in the oven and bore little resemblance to the golden and delicious-looking picture on the outer cardboard pack. The sausages were pale and uninteresting, and the pudding was a synthetic-looking bright yellow colour.

I settled to eat my meal, speared a piece of the mish-mash of yorkshire pudding with my fork, and as I was putting it into my mouth, I was overwhelmed by a powerful eggy smell wafting up from the bright yellow wodge of pudding. It felt very unpleasant in my mouth - not dissimilar to how I'd imagine chewing on a lump of plasticine would be.

The egg smell and taste was so overwhelming.....this wasn't yorkshire pudding I was eating......it was scrambled egg! The texture was chewy, gluey, and not at all pleasant. It is very, very rare that I leave food on my plate - even if it is substandard, I will battle on and force it down, but I am afraid to say I just couldn't eat any more of this awful yorkshire pudding. I scraped as much of the gunk as I could from the sausages, pushed it all to the side of my plate so that it couldn't contaminate the rest of the food, and sampled a piece of one of of the pale, uninteresting sausages.

I was pleasantly surprised, as the sausages had a good texture and flavour, and I was able to eat and enjoy them. My kitchen rubbish bin was the recipient of the sad mess which bore no resemblance at all to yorkshire pudding.

In summary, I would say this is by far the worst ready-made toad-in-the-hole I have ever eaten, and I am very surprised that Sainsbury's managed to churn out something to unpleasant. I certainly won't be buying it again, even if is only £1, as I feel even my own tragic efforts at making toad-in-the-hole are by far more palatable.

Summary: Give this one a definite miss and save yourself £1