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| Travel Guide 2 > Europe > UK > Recipes |
British Recipes and Cookbooks
Historically, British food had good reputation, especially in the Middle Ages, but in the last century or so, much of that reputation has been lost internationally. This loss in reputation was caused by a combination of factors: unadventurous menus, some poor quality restaurants, and the effects of rationing (introduced during World War II, but not finally abolished until 1954).
In recent years however, there has been a great renaissance in British cuisine, and a greater interest in the culinary arts throughout the British Isles (partly inspired by celebrity chefs on TV). High quality traditional and regional recipes are commonplace, new influences have been introduced from the Mediterranean cuisine and Indian cooking (and the rise of a new Anglo-Indian cuisine).
Some popular British meals and foods include:
- Sunday roast - The traditional main meal of the week, eaten on Sundays, with left-overs
used in various recipes for the next few days.
Roasted meat is served onion gravy, roast potatoes and vegetables, although the choice of meat may
vary between lamb, pork, beef or chicken, and each of type of meat has its traditional
accompaniments (mint sauce with lamb, apple sauce with pork, horseradish or mustard with beef,
small ("chipolata" sausages and redcurrant jelly or cranberry sauce with chicken).
- Fish and chips - Fish (usually cod or plaice), battered and fried, and served with French fries.
Mushy peas (a soup-like dish made from peas) is a popular side dish with this meal, especially in the
North of England.
- Full English breakfast - Sausage, bacon, eggs (fried, scrambled or boiled), fried bread, fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, black pudding (a type of blood sausage) and baked beans.
- Kedgeree - Flaked fish (usually smoked haddock), with boiled rice, eggs and butter. The dish
originated during the British Empire in India, where it was often eaten for
breakfast.
- Cornish pasty - A baked pie with a distinctive shape, traditionally filled with beef, onion, potato
and swede (rutabaga).
- Pie and mash - A pie containing minced (ground) meat,
with a side dish of mash potato. This is a traditional dish eaten in the East End of
London, where historically it was eaten with "jellied eels",
(eels stewed and cooled), the water from cooking the eels being used in making the pies.
- Steak and kidney pie - A pie filled with a mixture of diced beef, and lamb or pork kidneys in
a thick sauce.
- Shepherd's pie - Ground ("minced") lamb covered with a layer of mashed potato, and optionally
cheese. Variations exist with beef ("cottage pie") or fish ("fisherman's pie").
- Bangers and mash - Sausage and mashed potato.
- Toad in the hole - Sausages cooked in Ybatter.
- Lancashire hotpot - Meat, onion and potatoes baked in a pot or casserole dish for a long time on low heat.
- Chicken tikka massala - An Anglo-Indian dish made by cooking chunks of marinated chicken in a curry sauce.
If eaten as a main meal it is normally served with rice or naan (Indian bread), but variations are
popular as a (cold) sandwich filling or even as a
pizza topping!
Some surveys suggest that it is now the most popular dish in the UK.
- Balti - Another Anglo-Indian dish, this was
comes from the Asian community of Birmingham who developed
the recipe based on a Punjabi traditional recipes. Balti is a meat (chicken or lamb)
in a thick curry sauce, cooked and served in a heavy iron or steel pot. The curry
is eaten by scooping it up with naan (Indian Bread), the restaurants that serve it
being known as "balti houses".
- Arbroath smokie - A lightly smoked haddock, originally from Arbroath in Scotland.
- Mince and tatties - Minced (ground) beef and mashed potatoes.
- Haggis - One of Scotland's most famous traditional dishes, haggis is made using a sheep's heart, liver and lungs (collectively known as the "pluck"), minced (ground), and mixed with oatmeal, onions, suet, spices and stock, and then boiled in the sheep's stomach.
- Cock-a-leekie soup - A Scottish soup made from potato, leek and chicken stock.
- Welsh rarebit (sometimes called "Welsh rabbit") - Grated cheese mixed with beer, milk and butter, and then spread on toast and grilled (broiled).
- Spotted dick - A steamed pudding made from dried fruit (especially raisins) in dough.
Served hot, usually with custard.
- Bakewell tart - A pastry shell spread with with jam
(fruit preserve), and then filled with a sponge-like filling.
- Mince pies -
A traditional dish eaten at Christmas.
Mince pies are a sweet pastry, nowadays filled with a mixture of dried and chopped fruits and nuts in
suet, brandy or rum, but historically filled with
spiced meat and ground dried fruit.
- Christmas pudding - Another dessert traditionally eaten at Christmas, Christmas pudding is a steam dessert made with dried fruit, nuts and suet, and soaked in brandy or other alcoholic beverages.
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