Tuesday 13 March 2012

Crapeau dans le Trou

Posted by Rosie

Quite often Tom and Ben have French friends over to eat and more often than not I fail to find something they will eat. Main courses that is. Puddings and cakes go down a storm but I have failed with my bolognaise sauce, with my quiche and even with my pizzas. On Saturday we had invited three friends and their Mum (Bonjour Gwen!) to come here after rugby and I needed to find something they would eat.  Pudding was easy. At Christmas Ben got The Usbourne Cookbook for Boys and our new favourite pudding from it is Ice Cream Sundaes. I knew ice cream, sauce, biscuits, sprinkles, squirty cream and maybe even a bit of fruit would be a success. But main course, that would be harder.

"Kerching!!" I had an idea. Last term the boys had each taken a recipe into school that were compiled into a school recipe book. Ben's was Gingerbread Men and Tom's was Crapeau dans le Trou ..... Toad in the Hole. That is what I would make because I am sure they would eat the sausages if nothing else. I decided to serve it with salad, for the adults at least but it turned out the children adore Lamb's Lettuce and adored even more my raspberry vinegar salad dressing. My first success. I also served it with sweetcorn and Gwen was surprised to see me heat it as she had only ever eaten it cold in a salad and she has never eaten hot buttery corn on the cob. In fact most French think sweetcorn or maize is only fit for animal food. Did she like it hot? Yes she did. I was on a roll here.

How would the Crapeau go down? Disparaging looks were given to it as it came to the table. Negative murmurs were to be heard but I served it up with a smile and my fingers crossed. "Oh, c'est formidable!" came the cry from round the table and seconds were soon been asked for. Yay, I had at last found something savoury that French children would eat.

2 comments :

  1. Congrats! - Will send Santiago over there for a few weeks so he gets trained on French cousin !!!

    But believe me, we do understand how frustrating it is to prepare a nice delicious meal but getting "yuuuk face" from the little ones ... ggrrrr !

    We will have to give it a try next time over there ... with pavlova as desert !!!

    All the best !

    Pablo

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  2. Sounds like a success, no doubt tales of the wonderful meal will be spread and it will become your signature dish.

    You'll become known as the woman who serves up holes with toads in them, but tasty ones at that!!

    Sue xx

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