One of the most common dishes that you’ll find coming out of English cooking is the Yorkshire Pudding. For those not familiar with the dish, it isn’t really a pudding at all in a traditional sense. It’s name comes from the batter that is created from a basic combination of eggs, flour, and milk. The batter is then fried and has a pocket inside that is perfect for some gravy and roast beef. Sometimes called “pockets,” the Yorkshire Pudding recipe was first published in 1747 in a cookbook authored by Hannah Glasse.
Glasse’s cookbook was a change from what was typically published back during this time because it was a generally accepted practice that professional chefs would only create cookbooks for other professionals. Glasse created her cookbook for those who weren’t professionals. She is also known for publishing the first curry dish in an English cookbook.
Here is a look at some other typical staples of English cuisine you might expect to find.
1. Fish and Chips
Nothing speaks of English cuisine more than the simple, yet flavorful, fish and chips. You can always find some sort of trailer or truck selling this street food coming with salt and malt vinegar and eaten from a newspaper just about wherever you go. The fish is light, the batter is crunchy, and the chips [what others might call fries] are hot and crisp. The street vendor would serve this dish within a newspaper.
2. Meat Pies
If you’re looking for a quick bite to eat, if you aren’t in the mood for seafood, then you’re typically going to get a meat pie. Pies are a huge staple of English cooking and have been for centuries. Filled with almost any type of meat and surrounded by a flaky crust, the simple elegance of flavors, spices, and perhaps a light sauce is something that will whet any appetite.
3. Bangers
If you think you can’t do anything different with a sausage, then you’ve never had the delight of eating a banger. The meats that go into bangers are almost never smoked or dried and are instead created from fresh meat. These are typically based in beef or pork, but premium bangers today can be made with virtually any fresh animal protein. Fruits, herbs, and other spices are also now included in the sausage making process.
4. Black Pudding
The one dish that seems to turn more people off at breakfast than on, black pudding is made from the blood of the pig. This is mixed in with a lot of oatmeal and sometimes you might find pennyroyal, which is a bit like spearmint, in with the pudding as well. These puddings are sliced and then fried and grilled as part of a traditional breakfast.
5. Pickled Relish Sandwiches
The English brought us the word for a sandwich, even if people have slapped together two pieces of bread and something between them for a meal for years. What is unique to the English sandwich, however, is the addition of a pickled relish to the filling.
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