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Kilidoescartwheels
Valinor
Oct 5 2015, 7:01pm
Post #26 of 49
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Those links are very helpful! I was a little worried about picking "United Kingdom" culture, since I thought it might be too close to American, but not so! Lots of variety here, and food combos we in America don't do. Never had Leeks before, I shall check them out this weekend. Again, thanks!
Proud member of the BOFA Denial Association
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Kim
Valinor
Oct 6 2015, 12:16am
Post #27 of 49
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Well that explains why chicken tikka masala is my favorite Indian food - must be my English background LOL. I'm afraid I'm not very adventurous when it comes to food, especially spicy food, but this list is quite impressive. Very filling. But I've never understood the baked beans for breakfast thing. Or the concept of beans on toast. Over here, beans go with BBQ!
I would like to try some pasties though. And that sticky toffee pudding - I've heard good things about that. *starts making a list for my next visit*
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ShireHorse
Rohan
Oct 6 2015, 11:00am
Post #28 of 49
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Glad you found that useful, Kilidoescartwheels!
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I think that the British food repertoire is much more extensive than it appears on here because we like variations of international recipes so much. Chili is very popular at the moment. I love chili chocolate and I put chili chocolate in stews; and I also love a sweet chili coating on chicken. But you can't call that traditional British. And, of course, we like everything that Americans like. Sea food platters are very popular because we have such an extensive coastline and we are all very close to the sea being such a small country - fresh fish is readily available. Any form of fish dish usually goes down well with us from Thai fish cakes to something expensive with lobster.
And we do love new things: my two daughters always go for the weirdest things on the menu just to see what they taste like.
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ShireHorse
Rohan
Oct 6 2015, 11:32am
Post #29 of 49
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I adore spicy food. And I think that our baked beans are slightly different from yours - perhaps sweeter. And this might explain why we eat them with different things from you. Buy a tin when you visit next or try them if you eat a 'full English'.
The Brits have a reputation for stodgy, filling food - we probably like 'toothsome' things because they make us feel all cosy during our miserable winter weather: we want to fill ourselves with comfort food. Our 'suet puddings', like Spotted Dick with custard, made a big comeback about 20 years ago. People were reminded of 'school dinner' days where the best part was the pudding. Sounds unsavoury, LOL, but they're delicious on a cold winter's day. Suet is hard, white, animal fat and I'm sure it's bad for you! But, everything that tastes good is bad for you. Here's a recipe:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/...2686661/spotted-dick
I was at my daughter's wedding in the Lake District the other week and stayed on for a holiday. As a special treat on my birthday, I went to L'Enclume in the pretty village of Cartmel - this is often considered the best restaurant in the country. They serve a 'tasting menu' - very popular in the UK at the moment. We went for lunch and had 7 small courses - all imaginative and very different. My daughter and her husband went for the 17 course evening meal - some of the courses are only a mouthful. They are both what I would call 'foodies' and they thought it brilliant. If you check out this link and click on the photos at the top, then you will see a copy of the sort of menu that we had (photo # 13). I suppose you would call this 'nouvelle' British cuisine and my daughter certainly tries to cook this sort of thing when she holds dinner parties at home.
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/...Cumbria_England.html
I think that we demand world food and things that are different and the ready-made meat products you can find in the supermarkets - bought by people who are both busy and working - reflect this. When I go on holiday to Spain, Italy and France, they just have the basic meats and the busy housewife is expected to cook things from scratch. This is why the British store Marks and Spencer (clothes and food) was such a huge hit when it opened in Paris - the French had nothing like it and the women were very grateful.
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Na Vedui
Rohan
Oct 6 2015, 9:12pm
Post #30 of 49
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PARKIN
Half pound plain flour
half pound medium oatmeal
4 oz brown sugar
rind of half a lemon, grated
half a pint of boiling milk
1 rounded teaspoon of ground ginger
ditto of baking powder
half a level teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
4 oz lard [or other fat for a veggie version]
4 heaped tablespoons of black treacle
Melt lard and treacle together in a saucepan. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients well. Add the lard and treacle but don't mix in yet. Add the milk and now mix well to a thick batter. Bake in a lined roasting-tin (9 inches X 7 inches) about an hour at 150 degrees C. [You may find it needs a bit longer than this].
More anon - I'm labouring under difficulties - cat on knee...
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Na Vedui
Rohan
Oct 6 2015, 9:29pm
Post #31 of 49
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WELSH CAKES (PICE BACH / PICE AR Y MAEN)
These are traditionally made on a griddle but a thick-bottomed frying-pan will do.
8oz self-raising flour
4 oz marge
3 oz sugar
2 oz currants
1 egg
milk to mix
Rub fat into flour. Add sugar, currants & egg and enough milk to mix to a stiff dough. Roll and cut into flat rounds no thicker than your little finger and no bigger than the top of a smallish teacup. Rub frying pan/griddle with fat and let it dry off before putting the cakes on; bake on each side till a bit browned. {You may need to experiment a bit with thickness and baking times - I've not attempted this one myself so can't advise!]
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Na Vedui
Rohan
Oct 6 2015, 9:42pm
Post #32 of 49
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The last 2 recipes were given to me by friends so I don't know their provenance; this one's off the back of a tin of laverbread (the Welsh seaweed; you may be able to get it in a delicatessen):
LAVER CAKES
4 slices of streaky bacon
120g tinned laverbread
30g medium or fine oatmeal
Mix laverbread & oatmeal & shape into little cakes about 2 inches across and three-quarters of an inch thick. Fry bacon as normal, take it out, then fry the lavercakes in the hot bacon-fat 2-3 minutes each side, maintaining their shape with a pallet-knife. Lift out carefully and eat with the bacon.
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Na Vedui
Rohan
Oct 6 2015, 10:25pm
Post #33 of 49
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It's been quite interesting, poking amongst my recipe books - there is Yorkshire Parkin, Derbyshire Thar or Thor Cake, and Lancashire Harcake - all slightly different variations, in adjacent counties, on a cake made with oatmeal and treacle, and all traditionally associated with the first few days of November- Thar cake and Parkin with Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes night 5 November - I grew up in Sheffield and we used to have parkin), and Harcake with All Saints' Day (Nov 1st).
There were also (different, not oatmeal and treacle) traditional cakes for All Souls Day (Nov 2), called Soul Cakes, but I'm not sure what part of England they hail from.
Next up, Bara Brith (I'm still be-mogged but the mog is asleep and being a book-rest, though for how long...).
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Na Vedui
Rohan
Oct 6 2015, 10:55pm
Post #34 of 49
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This is one recipe - I've seen others with different things in, like marmalade instead of treacle, or mixed fruit instead of currants.
BARA BRITH
4 oz plain flour
half a level teaspoon of mixed spice
2 oz butter or margarine
2 oz soft brown sugar (not Demerara, the sort like sand)
4 oz currants
grated rind and juice of half a lemon
half a level teaspoon of caraway seeds
1 level dessertspoon of black treacle
1 egg
half a level teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
4 tablespoons of milk.
Soak the currants and sugar in tea overnight.
Take a 1-pound loaf-tin; grease whole tin, line the bottom with greaseproof paper cut to size, and grease top surface of lining
Preheat oven to gas mark 4 / 350 degrees F / 180 degrees C
Sift flour and mixed spice into a large bowl. Rub in butter till mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar, currants, lemon juice & rind, caraway seeds, black treacle & egg. Separately, mix the bicarb with the milk. Stir this into the main mixture and beat well. Spoon mixture into loaf-tin and smooth the top. Bake 40 - 45 minutes or until well risen, then reduce oven temperature to "cool" (Gas mark 2 / 300 degrees F / 150 degrees C) and bake 35 - 40 minutes till firm to the touch. Turn out on to a wire tray to cool.
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dormouse
Half-elven
Oct 6 2015, 10:57pm
Post #35 of 49
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We don't all adore spicy food, ShireHorse. I can't stand curry or chili, am not keen on peppery dishes and think chili chocolate is the invention of the devil  . Mind you, I do love Nasi Goreng and there's not many British people who would even be aware of that. That's a childhood thing - my Dad was Dutch and it's an Indonesian dish. but I'm with you on the fish - virtually any fish providing it's not curry
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ShireHorse
Rohan
Oct 7 2015, 9:17am
Post #36 of 49
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Yes, that was rather a sweeping statement. But. I believe that the curry has been voted as the UK's favourite food - it's always in competition with fish and chips. However, I HAVE eaten Nasi Goreng - and enjoyed in - when I was in Amsterdam once.
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Annael
Immortal
Oct 8 2015, 2:51pm
Post #37 of 49
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my aunt would cook it in the pan that the meat had been cooked in, to pick up all that nice tasty grease.
It's basically eggs with a bit of flour and milk, as I recall; you mix them all up, pour them in the hot pan, and bake at a fairly high heat. It puffs up and then falls when it cools; you cut it in pieces & serve with the main meal.
That's how we do it on this side the pond, anyway.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the words begin to move around … The words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Annael
Immortal
Oct 8 2015, 2:54pm
Post #38 of 49
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I remember an amazing meal in Amsterdam when I was 16, touring around with me mum. They called it a Rijsttafel and there were many, many little plates of deliciousness that you could serve yourself from. We thought of it as "curry" but I've never had curry like that again.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the words begin to move around … The words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Dame Ioreth
Tol Eressea
Oct 8 2015, 4:04pm
Post #39 of 49
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Yorkshire pudding is a lot like American Popovers
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except it is cooked in the grease from a roast usually, all in one pan instead of in separate muffin tins. The batter is almost identical (I make both on a regular basis) and my family has made Yorkshire pudding with their prime rib beef roast for as long as I can remember. My Polish grandma was an Anglophile and tried a lot of different recipes from England. That one stuck because, oh my goodness, is it good! I've made toad in the hole - my sausages didn't want to stay under though so they were more like Toad out of the hole.
I always got the impression that "pudding" in England referred to two different things - either "dessert" as in "What's for pudding?" or the actually dish which was more of a steamed bread crumb (or other baked good crumb) suet-type pudding like what Americans might know as plum pudding. My grandma made that too and I have her pudding mold now.
The pudding we have in the states is usually milk with cornstarch or tapioca-thickening and flavor. Custard has egg in it - pudding doesn't usually have eggs. It can also be made with Arrowroot as a thickener. I've read some English-author books (jane Austen and others) talking about giving arrowroot to invalids. I think it was given in a milk thickened with arrowroot as a means to give nutrition to the sick and elderly which might be why it's not a dessert there! 
_
Heed WBA when building blanket forts.
ITLs don't get enough FAS. :)
Where there's life there's hope, and need of vittles.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
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Susan
Bree
Oct 8 2015, 8:42pm
Post #40 of 49
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A quick question about pudding for a kindly British (or European) TORner
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Just wondering, is Christmas pudding still eaten in Britain, and what exactly is it like? I came across it in a book, but haven't been able to satisfactorily imagine it. (The only pudding I've ever had is a sweet, thick, custard-y thing).
Thank you !
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dormouse
Half-elven
Oct 8 2015, 10:23pm
Post #41 of 49
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I think a lot of people buy ready-made Christmas pudding now rather than making their own but the tradition of Christmas pudding is alive and well.
It's cooked in a bowl - steamed for several hours if you make it from scratch - so the pudding is always dome-shaped like an upside-down bowl and it's solid; made with breadcrumbs, lots of dried fruit and citrus peel, nuts, egg, sugar, suet or butter, usually sherry or brandy and spices. The texture is a bit like a dark fruit cake only much softer and more moist with a strong flavour and it's served with brandy butter or cream or some sort of custard.
When everyone made their own puddings there was one day a few weeks ahead of Christmas when it was traditional to make it. It was a Sunday - I can't remember which one without looking it up - but it was the Sunday when the Collect for the day in the Prayer Book was (still is) the one that begins "Stir up, we beseeach thee O Lord. . ." That was the day everyone was supposed to go home and stir up their pudding mix and steam it.
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dormouse
Half-elven
Oct 8 2015, 10:31pm
Post #42 of 49
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Nasi Goreng is one of the dishes...
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...they serve in a Rijsttafel. It's a fried rice dish with vegetables, prawns or chicken or both, and a spicy sauce which isn't the same as curry - it has a very different taste. It think curry is usually based on turmeric and cumin where Nasi Goreng is ginger and soy.
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Starling
Half-elven
Oct 8 2015, 11:33pm
Post #43 of 49
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Back in the day everyone put coins in their puddings. I can still remember the excitement of rummaging through my serving and seeing that glint!
It's usually served with a brandy sauce or custard and or cream.
So delicious! A lot of people buy ready made puddings now, so it is a pretty special treat to have a homemade one.
Here's a recipe.
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Dame Ioreth
Tol Eressea
Oct 9 2015, 12:55am
Post #44 of 49
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I'm not from the UK but I make it almost every year.
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My grandma called it Plum Pudding and she made it every year after she found the recipe in a colonial cookbook. She steamed it and then turned it out of the mold, flamed it with brandy, and served it with brandy sauce. I made it once for my in-laws and almost set the tablecloth on fire! But it is yummy!
_
Heed WBA when building blanket forts.
ITLs don't get enough FAS. :)
Where there's life there's hope, and need of vittles.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
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Susan
Bree
Oct 9 2015, 11:14am
Post #45 of 49
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Thank you, Dormouse, Starling, and Dame Ioreth!
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It sounds pretty delicious, actually (anything with dried fruit and brandy in it? Yum.) Maybe I'll try it this holiday season . Thanks again!
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smtfhw
Lorien
Oct 10 2015, 1:48am
Post #46 of 49
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Minced beef. perhaps some vegetables like onions and carrots, cooked first then put in a deep dish and topped with mashed potato, and then cooked in the oven until the top goes nice and brown. So yes... and shepherd's pie is much the same except made with lamb.
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smtfhw
Lorien
Oct 10 2015, 1:49am
Post #47 of 49
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It's a herring, smoked. Best served grilled and with a dab of
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smtfhw
Lorien
Oct 10 2015, 1:53am
Post #48 of 49
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Developed a taste for it when I was living in the Netherlands and occasionally make it myself at home.
I would suggest that the majority of Brits these days do like spicy food. Then again when I was growing up most of them wouldn't eat anything flavoured with anything apart from salt and pepper (and certainly NOT garlic, and definitely not spices of any kind). Times have changed in the culinarly world and for the
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smtfhw
Lorien
Oct 10 2015, 2:00am
Post #49 of 49
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The reason you've never found "curry" like it is because the Riijstafel is Indonesian and - at least in the UK - Indonesian restaurants don't exist because Indonesia was not part of the British empire. India was and thus we have Indian restaurants where the Dutch have Indonesian restaurants. Haven't done the rijstafel thing in such a long time...
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