Top 10 English dishes
Mini toad in the holes
What better way to celebrate St George’s Day than with a mini toad in the hole (pictured above)? Fresh sage, cider and three sausage halves go into each portion – remember to rest your Yorkshire pud batter for half an hour, to ensure fluffy results.
Bacon, bubble and cheese butty
The best of England, shoved inside a sandwich. The bacon, bubble and cheese butty oozes with roast dinner leftovers, melting cheddar cheese and crispy bacon, and is best eaten with lashings of tomato ketchup and mustard.
Hearty hotpot
make great veggie options. A spicy bean medley – including cannellini and kidney beans – and colourful roasted veg mix is topped by a patchwork of thin potato slices. Bake until the filling is bubbling.
Roast leg of pork
Roasting any huge hunk of meat is a very English thing to do, but leg of pork is definitely one of this country’s favourites. Celeb MasterChef winner Liz McClarnon stuffs her pork with a sage and apple stuffing, and serves with crispy fried sage leaves.
Fish and chips
White, flaky fish, golden, glistening batter, and fat, vinegar-dowsed chips… we all love fish and chips. Mitch Tonks serves his the classic way, with a homemade tartare sauce (very easy to make) and a squeeze of lemon.
Egg, ham and chips
The perfect TV dinner, ham, egg and chips doesn’t have to be greasy. Gizzi Erskine makes hers ‘healthy’ by baking potato cubes, carved ham and vine tomatoes in a little olive oil and smoked paprika.
Pasty
Perfect for a picnic, and what the Cornish miners used to eat every day, pasties are a huge part of our history and are loved all over the country. Sophie Wright fills hers with a hearty mix of goats’ cheese, Parma ham, leeks and parsley.
Sussex pond pudding
Remember: never judge a pudding by its cover. It may not be the prettiest dessert on the trolley, but you’ll be laughing when you taste that first stream of buttery brown sauce pouring from the middle. Go on, give it a go!
Eton mess
Is this THE most British pudding of them all? It may have been invented by a bunch of public school boys, but Eton Mess works wonders for us all. Valentine Warner’s version throws the usual suspects – meringue and double cream – together with smashed blackberries.
Bread and butter pudding
The reason why we love stale bread. Gary Rhodes, who credits his mum for his love of cooking, suggests making his classic bread and butter pudding – bread, butter, vanilla, double cream and sultanas – for a Mother’s Day treat.