Soups & Stews
Slow-simmered comfort from every corner.
Oxtail Stew
A patient winter braise. Chunks of oxtail cook for three hours in red wine, stock and a little sticky tomato purée until the meat slides off the bone and the sauce turns thick and glossy. Serve over creamy mash and it will feed a small family for two happy nights.
Traditional Irish Stew
Classic Irish stew is a slow simmer, not a brown-then-braise: lamb neck, potato, onion and carrot cook together in a clear peppery broth. Never browned first — that would be a different dish.
Scotch Broth
A Highland soup that has warmed generations home from the hill: mutton or lamb simmered with pearl barley, root vegetables and a fistful of dried peas, into something rich enough to be a meal in its own right.
Cullen Skink
Named for the Moray fishing village of Cullen, this is a smoked haddock chowder of extraordinary simplicity — fish, potato, onion, milk — that tastes of the North Sea and a peat fire.
Cock-a-Leekie Soup
A very old Scottish soup, sometimes served at Burns suppers before the haggis. Chicken and leek simmer slowly together; a handful of prunes goes in near the end for a strange, wonderful sweetness against the salt.
Welsh Cawl
Wales's national dish: a clear, unshowy lamb-and-leek broth cooked slowly with root vegetables. Traditionally made a day ahead, skimmed of fat, and reheated — the flavour deepens overnight.
Welsh Leek & Potato Soup
A quiet, silky soup that leans on the two ingredients Wales does best: the leek and the potato. Butter, patience and good stock do the rest.