British food isn't exactly the first thing people go to when they think of world class cuisine.
But forget what you've heard about it. Truth is, the U.K. is home to some of
the tastiest dishes around. These are iconic British foods you need to try before you die.
You won't find many dishes simpler than bangers and mash. It consists
of a few sausages — or one Cumberland sausage — served with a hefty dollop of mashed potatoes.
More often than not, gravy will be involved. And that's pretty much it.
Usually, of course, things turn out a little fancier than that.
The sausages can be made from lamb or beef rather than the standard pork,
the mash can be spruced up with cream or mustard, while a handful of extra side additions might
be included too, depending entirely on the preference of the person making it.
The first thing to know about the bacon sandwich is that British bacon isn't the same as American
bacon. The British variant is leaner and meatier than the U.S. version, since it comes from the
loin of the pig rather than the belly. Some would even say the British stuff is tastier,
too. That's why, in the U.K., it seems far less crazy to stick a few rashers of bacon between two
buttered slices of bread, slather it in ketchup or brown sauce, and just go to town on it.
The bacon sandwich — or "butty," as northerners call it — is the ultimate quick-fix breakfast.
Some people like to spruce them up with fancy breads or fried eggs,
but most of the time it's made with nothing more than bacon, bread, and sauce.
"What I think makes a really good bacon sandwich is a good, smoky bacon.
I love that smokiness and I like it quite crispy."
And that's just the way it should be.
The full English is probably the most well-known breakfast in the U.K.
Although people make slight alterations to the dish based on their own preferences,
a proper full English should include at least some combination of sausage, bacon, eggs,
tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, baked beans, and black pudding. Other regions in the U.K. have their
own variations, too: in Scotland, for example, a full breakfast might include haggis or oatcakes,
while in Wales you might find it includes cockles or laverbread.
Although most British hotels and B&Bs will offer a full English breakfast,
the best ones tend to be served in grubby little greasy spoons,
and should cost no more than a fiver. Don't bother trying anything too fancy with this one — you'll
only be disappointed. Beef Wellington
One of the many pies and pastries to be found in British cuisine, Beef Wellington is made up of
fillet steak coated with pâté and duxelles, which is a kind of mix of mushrooms, onions, and herbs.
This steak is then wrapped in ham and baked in a pastry. Many recipes use pâté de foie gras,
but this particular ingredient tends to be a little controversial — to say the least.
This is another one of those delectably hearty dishes that you'll most often find served in
pubs up and down the U.K, though it's not too hard to make at home. If nothing else,
it's a great use of any leftovers from a Sunday roast.
One of Britain's more notorious foods, black pudding is a kind of blood sausage made from
pork blood, fat, and cereal, which is then spiced with mint, thyme, and pennyroyal.
Taste-wise, imagine eating a particularly bready kind of sausage and you're probably halfway there.
Although it's a regional speciality in the West Midlands and North-West of England,
black pudding is a staple part of the full English,
so you can expect to find it on breakfast tables around the country.
It'd be very easy to give the chip butty a bad rap, but that wouldn't be very fair — because
this is by far one of the best comfort foods Britain has to offer. The idea is simple: you
heap a load of thick-cut chips — French fries for Americans — onto a slice of buttered bread, throw
a little sauce on if you like, stick another slice of bread on top... and then you're good to go.
Most often found in the North of England, the chip butty is a mainstay food of the British
working class. Depending on where you are in the country, and on what kind of bread you're using,
you might hear it referred to as a chip sandwich, chip roll, chip bap, chip cob, chip sarnie,
or something else entirely. Doesn't matter what it's called, though — it still tastes great.
At first glance, chicken tikka masala may seem like an Indian dish,
but it's believed by many to have been created by South Asian immigrants in the United Kingdom,
with one account placing its origins in Glasgow. This is disputed,
however, and others claim it is simply a modification of an existing Indian recipe.
Either way, chicken tikka masala is one of the country's most iconic
and best-loved dishes. It consists of small pieces of chicken that have been marinated
in spices and yogurt before being oven-roasted and stirred into a tomato-based curry sauce.
It's usually served with rice and naan, and is served in pretty much every single
one of the U.K.'s many, many, many Indian restaurants and takeaways.
Also known as shepherd's pie, cottage pie basically consists of ground meat,
such as beef or lamb, cooked in an onion gravy, topped with mashed potatoes,
and baked in an oven. Often, it includes other ingredients such as peas or carrots,
and if it doesn't, then you'll more than likely find them served on the side.
Many British people will remember cottage pie as a staple school dinner, and you can also find
it on the menu in most pubs. But anyone will tell you that the best cottage pie is always homemade.
Named for the ultra-posh and highly controversial school from which it originated,
Eton mess is a traditional dessert made up of strawberries, meringue,
and whipped cream. Some recipes include other fruits such as raspberries and blackberries,
but as long as you've got something fruity to play off against that cream and the crumbly meringue,
you'll be just fine. This one is best enjoyed at the height of summer.
Fish and chips is one of the world's most famous British dishes, and for good reason,
too. It's basically fish fried in batter served up with the thickly-cut chips,
usually doused in salt and vinegar — with a little ketchup or some mushy peas on the side.
The fish itself is most often cod or haddock, but other kinds are occasionally used.
Although you'll find fish and chips pretty much everywhere in the U.K.,
proper seaside chippies almost always do it best. The fish is always freshly-caught,
the chips will be made just right and the setting is invariably just right for the occasion.
Put short: this is the ultimate British culinary experience.
Game pies are traditional English pastries that are best known for having become really quite
over-the-top during the Victorian era. Although recipes for game pies have changed over the years,
modern variations tend to contain meats such as venison,
rabbit, pheasant, pigeon, or boar, and are mixed in with garlic,
shallots or onions, bacon, pork, as well as a range of different herbs and spices.
Unlike the Victorians, you needn't worry about birds stuffed within birds or crazy,
fancy pastry patterns — simplicity is key here. Simplicity and a good ale, that is.
The jam roly-poly is pretty much just a Swiss roll with a better name.
It's a pudding made from suet dough, which is spread with jam and rolled up before baking.
You'll sometimes find it dusted with sugar or served with cream,
custard, or ice-cream, but it's a nice enough treat no matter how you have it.
Modern versions often use sponge cake, like a Swiss roll, rather than suet — partly because
it's easier to get hold of, and partly because it's a little more palatable. Either way,
it doesn't matter... just so long as it's bursting with fruit jam.
Okay, yes, Jellied eels might seem like something they'd serve you in hell, and, well… yeah, they're
really not that great. This dish is prepared by chopping up eels, boiling them in stock, then
allowing it to cool and set into a jelly. Just to make things even better, they are also eaten cold.
Jellied eels are slimy, salty, and totally gross,
too — but they have a genuinely fascinating past, and trying a bowl of them in a proper
East End establishment really does feel like you're tasting history.
A kipper is basically a split herring that has been pickled and smoked, and although they're
eaten all over Europe, they're particularly popular in Britain. Nowadays, they're eaten
as a breakfast food, although they're not quite as popular as they once were — so don't take
them for granted if you do get hold of some. You might just be surprised how tasty they can be.
It might be a shock to discover that the knickerbocker glory comes from the same
country as jellied eels and black pudding, but it's true. Once sold almost exclusively out of
the country's many ice cream vans, knickerbocker glories are basically elaborate ice cream sundaes,
made up of vanilla ice cream, strawberries, whipped cream, syrup, sprinkles, and a wafer,
all served in a tall glass. Sometimes they might include chopped nuts, more syrups, chocolate,
or anything else any kid could ever want. And yes — they really do taste as good as they look.
The Battenberg is easily one of Britain's most visually striking desserts, but it's definitely
something of an acquired taste. The inner section is nice enough, being made up of a light sponge
held together with jam. The outer layer, however, is made from marzipan — a thick,
fondant-like confection made up of sugar, honey, and almonds. Marzipan has got a genuinely unique
flavor to it, but it's not for everyone; in fact, a 2019 survey found that it was one of the U.K.'s
most hated foods. Still, no one would blame you if you swapped it out for a little fondant instead.
Funnily enough, mince pies really aren't what they sound like. Although they did indeed contain
minced meat once upon a time, today they're a sweeter treat served exclusively at Christmas.
The modern mince pie is a sweet pastry dusted with sugar, filled with a concoction of dried
fruits and spices. They're pretty much bite-size, and are served in their millions every year.
For many Brits, these things literally taste like Christmas.
Thanks in part to the stratospheric rise of the fast food bakery chain Greggs,
the humble pasty has become one of the U.K.'s favorite lunch snacks. Originating in Cornwall,
pasties are usually made by wrapping a filling in a pie-like pastry, and then baking them. Cornish
pasties always contain beef, potato, swede and onion, but countless different variations exist,
including chicken, pork, turkey, cheese, vegetables, and more.
As with anything, for the best pasties, you'll need to go straight to the source:
Cornwall. They don't get much better than that.
Think of the ploughman's as kind of like the British version of the charcuterie board.
It's a spread of various foodstuffs, and different places will offer different variations,
but the key ingredients are bread, cheese, and onions. You might also find salad, ham,
hard boiled eggs, apple, chutney, pickled eggs or onions, or any other similar cold ingredients.
Ploughman's lunches are rather famous for being sold in pubs,
having once been pretty much the only type of food they would agree to serve.
As such, a proper ploughman's is invariably served with a pint of beer.
Another cold British classic is the pork pie, a small snack with a long-reaching history.
The earliest mentions of something resembling the pork pie appear as far back as the 14th century,
and the use of gelatin to preserve the meat inside was a staple method of medieval cooking.
Nowadays, pork pies are often included as part of a ploughman's, or eaten with a salad on the side.
Arguably the best around is the Melton Mowbray pork pie, which is always hand-molded, made with
uncured meat, and, unlike other versions, uses pork that has been chopped rather than minced.
They may not look like much, but they're one of Britain's most beloved snack foods.
Scones, or as some denizens of the UK say it, scones, are a type of sweet — or
sometimes savory — baked food made from wheat or oatmeal. Although they come in many varieties,
the most famous use of scones in England is as part of cream tea,
a traditional type of afternoon tea that has them served with clotted cream, and jam.
The pronunciation of the word is also a major point of contention amongst British people. A 2016
survey found that 51 percent of Britons pronounce it to rhyme with "gone" whereas 42 percent
pronounce it to rhyme with "bone." The former is a northern and Scottish thing, whereas the latter
is a southern thing. For some reason, Brits take this debate very, very seriously indeed.
"So, first question: scone, scone?"
"Scone."
"Well, if you're from northern, it's scone, isn't it?"
"Scone." "Scone, it is. Scone."
"It is scone."
"Because once it's scone, it's scone."
The range in quality between good Scotch eggs and bad Scotch eggs is very wide indeed; that is to
say that bad Scotch eggs are very bad indeed — and good Scotch eggs are nothing less than pure bliss.
Scotch eggs are boiled eggs wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried or
baked. They're a favorite bar snack up and down the U.K., but you'll also find lesser
versions in British supermarkets. A good Scotch egg should have a thick lining of high-quality
pork sausage meat, preferably well-flavored with herbs such as parsley and chives.
The egg should be soft-boiled rather than hard-boiled, and when you cut or bite into it,
the yolk should basically explode. This is one dish that's worth the extra effort.
To most British people, the term "scouse" will conjure images of Liverpool, where the inhabitants
are colloquially known as scousers. But they're called this for a reason. Scouse was originally
a stew concocted by sailors, which first originated in Norway and spread to Liverpool,
once Britain's foremost port. Although the city has changed a lot since its imperial heyday,
the dish has remained, and is still served at cafes and restaurants across the city.
This stew is usually lamb or beef-based, and also contains onions, carrot, potatoes, cabbage,
and pretty much any other leftover vegetable you have; although beetroot tends to be a
particularly popular ingredient. Served up with some nice, crusty bread, scouse comes out on top
as the best winter stew out there — and one of the U.K.'s tastiest regional dishes full stop.
Stargazy pie is a truly peculiar dish, both in name and appearance. The term "stargazy" refers
to the fact that the fish in the pie — usually pilchards or sardines — are facing outwards,
with their heads sticking up through the crust.
Aside from the fish, stargazy pie can contain any number of different ingredients,
including hard-boiled eggs, bacon, onion, mustard,
herbs, wine, and more. And although it looks downright weird, it actually tastes pretty great.
It's a rich, salty and extremely filling dish that acts as an entire meal in one.
The roast dinner is probably the ultimate British dish.
Typically eaten on a Sunday — and nowadays very popular in pubs — the typical roast is centered
around one particular kind of roast meat. This can be anything from beef to pork to lamb to chicken,
although game birds are occasionally used, too.
Accompanying the meat, you'll find any combination of roast potatoes, gravy, broccoli, green beans,
cabbage, parsnips, swede, carrots, peas, and cauliflower cheese. Each different type of meat
comes with its own additions, too. Roast beef, for example, is served with Yorkshire pudding,
mustard or horseradish. Pork tends to come with applesauce, crackling and stuffing. Lamb almost
always sits alongside mint sauce, and chicken is accompanied by stuffing or cranberry sauce.
Arguably the best roast dinner experience involves a pub,
friends or family, and a lot of beer and wine, but nothing beats a homemade
sunday roast, either — and the scope for customization is practically unlimited.
Toad in the hole is a little less gross than it sounds — mostly because it doesn't
involve any actual toads. Instead, the "toads" are sausages, while the "hole"
refers to a single giant Yorkshire pudding. Usually served with gravy and vegetables,
this dish is a kind of middle ground between the roast dinner and bangers and mash.
Unfortunately, toad in the hole is far harder to find than either of those dishes,
but it's more than worth a go if you can... especially if you love a good Yorkshire pudding.
As you may have learned on a certain '90s sitcom,
trifle is an English dessert made up of sponge fingers,
fruit, jelly, custard, whipped cream — and decidedly not beef sautéed with peas and onions.
"What's not to like? Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, good."
A good trifle feels like heaven in a bowl. A great trifle, which contains the traditional
alcoholic element, such as port, sherry or madeira wine, is one of the best desserts out there,
full-stop. Every layer works together in perfect harmony, making for both a visual and literal
feast for the senses. There's ample opportunity for experimentation here, too, as pretty much
anything that's sweet is bound to prove most welcome in whatever recipe you decide to use.
Referred to on The Great British Bake-Off as "the nation's favorite cake,"
Victoria sponge cake is kind of like a sweet, sugary sandwich,
in which a filling of jam and cream sits between two thick layers of light, frosted sponge.
It's not a hugely common menu item in British restaurants or pubs, but the Victoria sponge
cake is a favorite for home bakers — and almost every Brit has turned their hand to
it at least once before. Luckily, it's a cinch to make... and more than worth the effort, too.
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