Traditional British dishes have had competition from other dishes over the years. Despite this, if you visit England, Scotland or Wales, you can still be served up the traditional foods we have been eating for years.
Main meal dishes in England:
· Roast Beef
· Yorkshire Pudding
· Toad-in-the-Hole
· Roast Meats
· Fish and Chips
· Ploughman's Lunch
· Cottage Pie
· Shepherd's Pie
· Gammon Steak with egg
· Lancashire Hotpot
· Bubble and Squeak
· English Breakfast
· Bangers and Mash
· Black Pudding
· Bacon Roly-Poly
· Cumberland Sausage
· Pie and Mash with parsley liquor
Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. This is England's traditional Sunday lunch, which is a family affair.
Yorkshire Pudding. This dish is not usually eaten as a dessert like other puddings but instead as part of the main course or at a starter. Yorkshire pudding, made from flour, eggs and milk, is a sort of batter baked in the oven and usually moistened with gravy. The traditional way to eat a Yorkshire pudding is to have a large, flat one filled with gravy and vegetables as a starter of the meal. Then when the meal is over, any unused puddings should be served with jam or ice-cream as a dessert.
Toad-in-the-Hole (sausages covered in batter and roasted.). Similar to Yorkshire Pudding but with sausages placed in the batter before cooking.
Roast Meats (cooked in the oven for about two hours). Typical meats for roasting are joints of beef, pork, lamb or a whole chicken. More rarely duck, goose, gammon, turkey or game are eaten.
Roast Gammon. Traditional accompaniments to roast meats
With beef:
· Horseradish sauce
· English mustard
· Yorkshire pudding
· Gravy
With mutton and lamb
· Onion sauce
· Red-currant jelly
· Mint sauce
· Savoury herb pudding
With pork
· Apple sauce
· Pease Pudding
· Roast apples
Fish and chips. Fish (cod, haddock, huss, plaice) deep fried in flour batter with chips (fried potatoes) dressed in malt vinegar. This is England's traditional take-away food or as US would say "to go". Fish and chips are not normally home cooked but bought at a fish and chip shop ("chippie") to eat on premises or as a "take away".
Ploughman's Lunch. This dish is served in Pubs. It consists of a piece of cheese, a bit of pickle and pickled onion, and a chunk of bread.
Cottage Pie. Made with minced beef and vegetables topped with mashed potato.
Gammon Steak with egg (Gammon is ham).
Pie and Mash with parsley liquor. A very traditional East End London meal.
The original pies were made with eels because at the time eels were a cheaper product than beef. About fifty years ago, mince beef pies replaced the eels and have now become the traditional pie and mash that people know. The traditional pie and mash doesn't come without its famous sauce known as liquor which is a curious shade of green and definitely non-alcoholic. The liquor tastes much nicer than it looks (it's bright green!). Jellied eels are also an East End delicacy often sold with pie and mash
Bubble & Squeak. Typically made from cold vegetables that have been left over from a previous meal, often the Sunday roast. The chief ingredients are potato and cabbage, but carrots, peas, brussels sprouts, and other vegetables can be added. The cold chopped vegetables (and cold chopped meat if used) are fried in a pan together with mashed potato until the mixture is well-cooked and brown on the sides. The name is a description of the action and sound made during the cooking process.
Bangers and Mash (mashed potatoes and sausages). Bangers are sausages in England. (The reason sausages were nicknamed bangers is that during wartime rationing they were so filled with water they often exploded when they were fried.).
Black Pudding (Blood Pudding). Looks like a black sausage. It is made from dried pigs blood and fat). Eaten at breakfast time. Black pudding recipes vary from region to region, some are more peppery and some are more fatty than others.
Bacon Roly-Poly (made with a suet pastry).
Cumberland sausage. This famous pork sausage is usually presented coiled up like a long rope.
Favourite Children Meals. Three favourite meals with children are fish fingers and chips, pizza and baked beans on toast.
Puddings and Desserts
What is a Pudding?
A pudding is the dessert course of a meal (`pud' is used informally). In Britain, we also use the words 'dessert, 'sweet'' and 'afters'.
"What's for pudding?"
"What's for afters?"
"What's for dessert?"
Take care!
Not all our puddings are sweet puddings, some are eaten during the starter or main course like Yorkshire Pudding and Black Pudding.
Puddings and Cakes in England
There are hundreds of variations of sweet puddings in England, but each pudding begins with the same basic ingredients of milk, sugar, eggs, flour and butter and many involve fresh fruit such as raspberries or strawberries, custard, cream, and cakes. The more traditional and well known home-made puddings are apple or rhubarb crumble,bread and butter pudding, spotted dick and trifle. The traditional accompaniment iscustard, known as crème anglaise (English sauce) to the French. The dishes are simple and traditional, with recipes passed on from generation to generation:
· Spotted Dick
· Trifle
· Apple Crumble
· Hasty Pudding
· Bakewell Pudding
· Custard
· Bread and Butter Pudding
· Semolina Pudding
· Roly-poly Pudding
· Treacle Pudding
· Jelly and Ice Cream
· Cakes
· English Crumpets
· Sample menu
Favourite Puddings include:
Spotted Dick. (Also called Spotted Dog). Spotted dick is a steamed suet pudding containing dried fruit (usually currants), commonly served with either custard or butter and brown sugar.
Trifle. Made with layers of sponge cake altternate with custard, jam or fruit and Whipped Cream. Sometimes alcohol-soaked sponge cake is used.
Apple Crumble. Often served with thick cream, ice cream or custard.
Hasty Pudding. A simple and quick (thus the name) steamed pudding of milk, flour, butter, eggs, and cinnamon.
Bakewell pudding - also called Bakewell Tart.
Custard. A thick, rich, sweet mixture made by gently cooking together egg yolks, sugar, milk or cream, and sometimes other flavorings. Most people today use a yellow powder mixed with milk, water and sugar. Custard can be served as a hot sauce, poured over adessert, or as acold layer in, for example, a trifle. When it is cold, it 'sets' and becomes firm.
Bread and butter pudding - old English favourite.
Semolina Pudding. A smooth, creamy puddmade of milk, eggs, flavouring and sugaring. Semolina is cooked slowly in milk, sweetened with sugar and flavoured with vanilla and sometimes enriched with egg. Semolina pudding can be served with raisins, currants or sultanas stirred in or with a dollop of jam.
Roly-poly. A pudding made of jam or fruit rolled up in pastry dough and baked or steamed until soft.
Treacle pudding. A steamed pudding with a syrup topping.
Jelly and Ice Cream. A favourite party food for children.
Cakes:
Lardy Cake.
The Victoria Sponge - Named after Queen Victoria.
Parkin. A spicey cake combining oatmeal and ginger. Traditionally enjoyed around Guy Fawkes Night (November 5).
Simnel Cake. A traditional cake for Easter and Mothering Sunday (Mothers' Day).
Other
English Crumpets. A tasty "muffin" that goes great with tea, and spread with butter and preserves.
Mince Pies. Pastry shells filled with mince meat, and sometimes brandy or rum. Traditionally eaten at Christmas time.
