Typical Traditional British Dishes

Woodlands Junior School is in the south-east corner of England

Please note: We sometimes refer to England. This happens when we are referring to foods in England rather than other parts of Britain. England does not mean the same as Britain.
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Christmas Dinner

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.

This page contains some of England's most popular traditional dishes.

"Harry’s mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup and, for some strange reason, mint humbugs."

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J. K. Rowling

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

plate Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding

This is England's traditional Sunday lunch, which is a family affair.

Recipe


plate 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.

Image: Yorkshire Pudding

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.
Recipe

plate Toad-in-the-Hole (sausages covered in batter and roasted.)

Similar to Yorkshire Pudding but with sausages placed in the batter before cooking.

image: Toad in the Hole

Recipe

plate 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.

image: roast gammon
Roast Gammon

image: roast pork

Traditional accompaniments to roast meats

roast beefWith 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

image a place of Roast lamb
Sunday Roast

imag: roast beef

plate Fish and chips

Fish and Chips
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"

Fish and chips sign

plate 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. text taken from and copyright of projcetbritain.com

See a sample menu of food served in pubs

plate Shepherds' Pie

Made with minced lamb and vegetables topped with mashed potato)

Cottage PieRecipe

plate Cottage Pie (pictured right)

Made with minced beef and vegetables topped with mashed potato. (Pictured right)

Recipe

plate Gammon Steak with egg (Gammon is ham)

plate Lancashire Hotpot projetbritain.com

A casserole of meat and vegetables topped with sliced potatoes.

Recipe

plate 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

chicken meal
Chicken Salad

plate 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.

Recipe

plate English breakfast text taken from and copyright of projcetbritain.com

Eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, mushrooms, baked beans

Traditional English breakfast
A Full English Breakfast

plate 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.)

Recipe

pastie meal
Cornish Pastie with chips, baked beans and salad

plate Black Pudding (Blood Pudding)

Looks like a black sausage. It is made from dried pigs blood and fat). Eaten at breakfast time Recipe

Black pudding recipes vary from region to region, some are more peppery and some are more fatty than others. text taken from and copyright of projcetbritain.com

More information

plate Bacon Roly-Poly (made with a suet pastry)

A Cumberland sausageplate Cumberland sausage

This famous pork sausage is usually presented coiled up like a long rope



Vegetables

Favourite Children Meals

Three favourite meals with children are fish fingers and chips, pizza and baked beans on toast.