England
Roasting tins and pudding basins. Suet, mustard, beef dripping and an unshakeable belief that gravy improves most situations.
Beef Wellington
A showpiece of the English Sunday: a rosy fillet of beef, a whisper of mustard, a duxelles of mushrooms and a burnished cloak of buttery pastry. It is the sort of dish that quiets a room when it comes to the table.
Shepherd's Pie
Not to be confused with its beefy cousin the cottage pie: shepherd's pie is made with lamb, and only lamb. Slow-cooked with rosemary and a good glug of Worcestershire, then crowned with clouds of buttery mash.
Cornish Pasty
Miner's lunch, farmer's pocket-warmer, national treasure. The genuine Cornish pasty is a D-shaped case of shortcrust, filled raw with beef skirt, potato, swede and onion, and crimped along one side like a scallop's edge.
Sticky Toffee Pudding
A modern classic with the soul of an old pudding. Dark, date-sweet sponge drenched in a burnt-butter toffee sauce and served with something cold — cream, ice cream, or a good pouring custard.
Toad in the Hole
Fat pork sausages nestled into a giant Yorkshire pudding — this is a Wednesday-night dinner dressed up in Sunday clothes. Serve it with onion gravy and buttered greens and it becomes a feast.
Victoria Sponge
The teatime cake by which every other teatime cake is judged. Two feather-light sponges, a scarlet layer of raspberry jam, a slick of softly whipped cream, and a snowfall of icing sugar.
Lancashire Hotpot
A Northern classic that asks almost nothing of you and gives back everything. Lamb chops layered with onion, browned lamb kidneys and topped with overlapping scales of potato — into the oven for hours, out onto the table burnished and crisp.
Eton Mess
A tumbled together summer pudding — crushed meringue, softly whipped cream and macerated strawberries — supposedly first served at Eton College's cricket match against Harrow. It looks like a small, delicious disaster, and it should.
Yorkshire Pudding
The single most important thing on an English Sunday table. A tall, crisp-edged crown of batter, hollow in the middle, ready to hold a pool of dark gravy. Get the fat smoking hot, do not open the oven door, and remember: a Yorkshire is puffed by faith and physics, not by prayer.
Fish & Chips
The great British Friday supper: shatteringly crisp beer-battered cod, twice-cooked chips like little ingots of gold, a proper wedge of lemon and a spoonful of homemade tartare sauce. Vinegar optional, but strongly encouraged.
Bangers & Mash
Fat pork sausages on a mountain of buttery mash, drowned in dark, sticky onion gravy. It is the meal a proper English pub is measured by, and one of the great pleasures of a Tuesday night at home.
Steak & Kidney Pie
A great, dark, slow-cooked pie — chunks of chuck steak and ox kidney in a glossy stout gravy under a lid of puff pastry that shatters at the first cut. Winter cooking at its most generous.
Melton Mowbray Pork Pie
The proper Leicestershire pork pie: hand-raised in hot-water crust, filled with roughly chopped seasoned pork shoulder, baked until the crust bows and blushes, then filled through a hole in the lid with a good jellied pork stock. Cold, sliced thick, with English mustard and a pickled onion.
Bakewell Tart
A Derbyshire classic named for its town: crisp sweet pastry, a red seam of raspberry jam, and a golden almond frangipane that bakes to a soft, marzipan-scented crumb. Scattered with flaked almonds and cut into thin, greedy slices.
Spotted Dick with Custard
A steamed suet pudding studded with plump currants, sliced thickly and served swimming in a jug of proper vanilla custard. It has an unfortunate name and no rival on a cold January evening.
Full English Breakfast
The full English is less a recipe than a small parade: sausages, back bacon, black pudding, fried eggs, grilled tomato, mushrooms, baked beans and buttered toast, all pulled together with a strong pot of builders' tea. The trick is orchestration, not cooking.
Devonshire Scones with Clotted Cream
A proper cream tea: tall, tender scones warm from the oven, split open and heaped with a spoonful of thick clotted cream and a bright puddle of strawberry jam. The Devon method puts cream first and jam on top; the Cornish reverse. A quiet civil war is fought every summer over which is correct.
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.