Beer-Battered Fish and Chips
Beer batter that shatters, chips with a fluffy interior, and a proper mushy pea and tartare sauce alongside. The…
Roasts, puddings and the finest fried fish anywhere. 541 British recipes, from the everyday to the ambitious.
Pies and pasties, steamed puddings, roast trimmings and the café classics are all here. Much of it is forgiving rather than exact, so the methods tell you what to look and listen for as well as how long to wait. Check the cues as much as the clock.
The 541 recipes cover all ten of the site’s categories, among them 187 dinners, 107 bakes, 68 desserts, 46 lunches, 42 appetisers and small plates and 29 breakfasts. Of these, 127 are ready in 30 minutes or less, start to finish; the quickest are Gin and Tonic (2 min), Shandy (2 min) and Black Velvet (3 min). For 181, the method times a wait such as rising, chilling or marinating, and the time at the top of the recipe includes it. By difficulty: 367 easy, 159 medium and 15 hard.
As written, 303 are vegetarian, 60 vegan, 144 gluten-free and 128 dairy-free. Another 15 meet a diet label only with a swap the recipe names, and the recipe says which.
Beer batter that shatters, chips with a fluffy interior, and a proper mushy pea and tartare sauce alongside. The…
Lamb mince in a rich gravy under a piped mash with crisp golden ridges. Made with beef it is a cottage pie; the…
A rib of beef roasted to a rosy centre, rested properly, and carved thick, with Yorkshire puddings risen tall in…
Tall, straight-sided scones that split cleanly by hand rather than needing a knife. Cold butter, a light hand and a…
A plain loaf cake pierced all over while still hot and drenched in lemon and sugar, which soaks in and then sets…
A dark, date-sweetened sponge drenched in toffee sauce and served with cream. Blitzing the dates into a purée is…
Two golden sponge layers with jam and cream between, dusted with caster sugar. Named for a queen who took it with…
Minced beef in a rich gravy under a mash topping forked into ridges and browned. Cottage pie is beef; shepherd's pie…
Beef shin braised in dark ale until it falls apart, under a lid of rough puff pastry baked until the top is…
Sausages, bacon, eggs, black pudding, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans and toast, all arriving hot at the same moment. The…
Three ingredients in the proportion one part sugar, two parts butter, three parts flour, baked pale and cut while…
Crushed meringue, whipped cream and macerated strawberries folded together fifteen minutes before serving. Reputedly…
Fillet of beef wrapped in mushroom duxelles and prosciutto, encased in puff pastry and baked until the pastry is…
Soft-boiled eggs wrapped in seasoned sausage meat, breadcrumbed and fried until the crust is deep gold and the yolk…
Sausages baked in Yorkshire pudding batter until the sides climb the tin and the whole thing arrives dramatically…
Sponge soaked in sherry, a layer of fruit, proper custard set over the top and a thick raft of whipped cream. Built…
Shortcrust filled with raspberry jam and frangipane, baked until the almond filling is set and golden, and finished…
Good sausages, buttery mash and a proper onion gravy built from slow-caramelised onions and stock rather than a…
Beef skirt, potato, swede and onion, all raw, sealed in shortcrust and baked for nearly an hour so everything cooks…
Buttered bread layered with raisins, soaked in vanilla custard and baked until the peaks are crisp and the middle is…
Yeasted batter cooked in rings on a griddle until the tops are riddled with holes. Toasted, buttered, and eaten…
A thick, savoury cheese sauce spiked with mustard, ale and Worcestershire, spread on toast and grilled until…
Not cooking so much as assembly: a wedge of sharp cheddar, good bread, pickled onions, chutney, apple and butter…
Apples baked slowly with cinnamon and a splash of orange juice until they collapse into their own syrup. The only…
Smoked mackerel beaten with cottage cheese, lemon and horseradish into a coarse pâté — twelve minutes, no cooking.
Eggs scrambled slowly over low heat until barely set, with smoked salmon folded in off the heat and plenty of dill.
The plain vanilla sponge every other cake is built on: fine, even crumb, real vanilla, and enough structure to…
A pound of each: butter, sugar, eggs and flour, creamed by hand until the batter is pale enough to be its own…
Parboiled hard, shaken until furred, and roasted in smoking-hot oil. The ragged surface is the whole point, and it…
Dried bread, a great deal of butter, onions cooked properly and enough stock that the middle stays soft while the…
Chipolatas wrapped in streaky bacon and roasted hot until the bacon is lacquered and crisp. Stretching the bacon…
Homemade mincemeat matured for a day, in a sweet shortcrust rich enough to hold together in the hand. Butter rather…
Steamed for six hours, then left to mature for as long as you have. The long steam is what turns a bowl of dried…
Milk infused with onion, clove and bay, then thickened with nothing but breadcrumbs. Older than gravy, better than…
Soft, spiced and heavily fruited, with a piped flour cross and an apricot glaze that goes on while they are still…
A light fruit cake with a disc of marzipan baked through the middle and eleven balls on top, one for each apostle…
Dry cider warmed with apple, orange and whole spices, sweetened only just enough. Lighter than mulled wine and…
Smoked haddock, curried rice and soft-boiled eggs — a Victorian breakfast borrowed from khichri and improved by the…
Cauliflower roasted rather than boiled, under a mustard-sharp sauce made with cheese that is actually strong enough…
Tinned sardines mashed with lemon, chilli and parsley on charred sourdough. Fifteen minutes, about two pounds a…
Mushrooms cooked hard in a dry pan until they squeak and brown before any fat goes in, then finished with garlic…
Brown lentils and mushrooms cooked down with red wine and Marmite into something dark enough to carry a mash lid…
Tiny brown shrimps set in spiced butter and turned out on toast. Morecambe Bay has sent them south since the…
Prunes stuffed with almonds, wrapped in bacon and grilled until it crackles. The savoury that survived, mostly…
Oysters in bacon, grilled hot and eaten on toast. The other half of the Victorian savoury pair, and much older than…
Pea and ham soup thick enough to be named after the fog. A ham hock, a bag of split peas and almost nothing else.
Four ingredients, twenty minutes on the stove, and better than almost anything more complicated. The soup to know by…
Anglo-Indian curried soup, invented in Madras for officers who wanted a soup course and were given pepper water…