Delicious traditional British food?

[Ylfa]

I’m probably scarred by school meals in the 70s and 80s which were always along the lines of potatoes, other vegetables, meat and gravy, all of which tasted unseasoned. Does anyone have any robustly tasty recipes to share?

Toad in the hole? Dh is making it tonight. I think he uses a Nigel Slater recipe. Also how about steak and ale pie? Properly made, these things will bear little relation to 70's school canteen food!

Thanks for suggestions so far 😀

There's 100s of them, just try searching for:
The many types of meat pies.
All the regional variants of stews (cawl, scouse, hotpot etc.)
Pickles and preserves (piccalilli, chutneys, jams, jellies, fruit cheeses)
the multitude of cakes, scones, puddings, tarts etc.

I'm pretty sure you can find tasty recipes for all those 70s & 80s school diners, it's not hard.

Thanks, pickles and preserves sound especially nice. I’m not looking to replicate school meals, just interested in culinary heritage in general (as part of an ancestral cookbook).

Scones and baked goods
Desserts like apple crumble and eves pudding
Mince and Dumplings
Roast Dinner
Pies - so many here!

Victoria sponge is nice, as is carrot cake (is carrot cake British..?)
I’m definitely partial to a nice fish and chips with tartare sauce.
Sausage casserole, pies as mentioned.

Tbh, I struggle to mention many truly British dishes.
For all a certain section of society spout about being purely British and getting the country back and all that crap, it seems to me that a huge percentage of our culture, foods etc are borrowed or influenced by other cultures.

Eton mess!

Crumbles too - gooseberry, apple and blackberry, rhubarb.
And apple pie.

Lancashire hot pot
cheese and potato pie
Shepherds / cottage / cumberland pie
Mince and potatoes
Bangers and mash
Roast dinners
Stew and dumplings
Steak (and kidney) pudding
Any suet pudding
Yorkshire puddings
Scotch eggs
Cornish pasties
Fish and chips
Coronation chicken
Beef wellington
Chicken tikka masala
Pie & Mash
Eton Mess
Scones
Treacle / any sponge pudding
Spotted dick and custard

There's loads. pretty stodgy but you can make them all taste good

Amazing lists! Thank you. Now I really really want pudding!

I love ploughman’s lunch, apple pie and Cornish pasties all are traditional and british.

It all sounds so hearty and designed to keep the cold out 😊

Look at recipes using game - always flavoursome.

Chicken tikka masala ;)

What I find is that "traditional" British meals rely much more heavily on the quality of the ingredients, because the cooking techniques themselves are quite simple and don't use many extras. I use two of my cookbooks as an example - Ottolenghi Jerusalem, the ingredient lists are as long as your arm, layers and layers of flavours and textures. The Book of St John, many recipes have perhaps only 5 or 6 ingredients. So if you are making pasties with poor quality meat or tasteless veg, you can immediately tell. Or think of fish and chips - when it's spanking fresh fish, not mushy inside, and everything is rustling and crispy and not soggy with oil. A ploughmans with a crisp and intensely appley apple and excellent cheddar can be a thing of beauty - but one with a mealy red delicious and some rubbery tasteless cheese is just depressing. Dover sole with little brown shrimps, samphire and brown butter - just a handful of ingredients so it rises or falls on them all being top quality. If they aren't, don't even bother.

As a naturalised British citizen my favourites are:
chicken, bacon & leek pie
pasties
dover sole with samphire and little brown shrimps
ham, egg and chips
gammon and cauliflower cheese
ploughmans with pickled walnuts and piccalilli
roast pork with apple sauce and crackling

Cullen Skink. It a Scottish soup made with chunky smoked haddock, potatoes and onion. I'd also add Kedgeree. Obviously, it's roots are in India but has become something of a British breakfast classic.

Staffordshire oatcakes

Have a look at this. It's by an amazing cookery writer - as much a cultural history of English food as a recipe book (though it is a recipe book!) English Food

Xiaoxiong has it right.

Steak and ale pie
Lancashire hot pot
Pork pies with mint and peas and piccalilli
Sausages with apple mash
Corned beef hash
Ploughman's lunch
Beef Wellington

Most traditional British meals are meat, veg and potatoes in various ways as that's what we had seasonally available.

I love a Lancashire Hotpot, and shepherds pie/cottage pie is very nice when done well. Potted shrimps is another favourite. Fish cakes, steak & kidney pie, rarebit, Cumberland pie, fish pie, Cornish pasties, bangers & mash with onion gravy, toad in the hole. Desserts like parkin, syllabub, fruit crumble, rice pudding, stewed rhubarb, Manchester tart, summer pudding, lemon suet sponge, jam roll poly, bread & butter pudding.
I can recommend Gary Rhodes’ book “New British Classics” which has loads of great traditional recipes (I think it may be out of print but second hand copies are quite easy to get hold of).

Lamb casserole with Cheshire cheese crumble topping
Lancashire hotpot
Cornish pasties
Pie, all varieties

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.foodsofengland.co.uk/&ved=2ahUKEwiPkpO1p4ztAhUBmVwKHSrEBL0QFjAAegQIFBAD&usg=AOvVaw00VEGoTLZfXxNkjGzr2I9O" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.foodsofengland.co.uk/&ved=2ahUKEwiPkpO1p4ztAhUBmVwKHSrEBL0QFjAAegQIFBAD&usg=AOvVaw00VEGoTLZfXxNkjGzr2I9O not sure if the link will work but this is a very interesting website

Have a look for a book called New English Cookery, by Michael Smith - I think it's out of print now, but Amazon have a load of secondhand copies, from 1p (plus postage) upwards. It's probably most suited to a keen cook, but has some lovely recipes in it.