British cuisine- 

is the set of cooking traditions and practices associated with

the United Kingdom. However, British cuisine has absorbed the cultural influence of
those who have settled in Britain, producing many hybrid dishes, such as the Anglo-
Indian chicken tikka masala.
Fish and chips, a popular food of the United Kingdom.
Celtic agriculture and animal breeding produced a wide variety of foodstuffs for
indigenous Celts and Britons. England developed meat and savory herb stewing
techniques before the practice became common in Europe. The conquest introduced
exotic spices into England in the middle Ages. The British Empire facilitated a
knowledge of Indian cuisine with its "strong, penetrating spices and herbs". Food
rationing policies, put in place by the British government during wartime periods of the
20th century, are said to have been the stimulus for British cuisine's poor international
reputation.

Well-known traditional British dishes include full breakfast, fish and chips,

the Christmas dinner, the Sunday roast, steak and kidney pie, shepherd's pie,
and bangers and mash. People in Britain however eat a wide variety of foods based on
the cuisines of Europe, India, and other parts of the world. British cuisine has many
regional varieties within the broader categories of English, Scottish and Welsh
cuisine and Northern Irish cuisine. Each has developed its own regional or local
dishes, many of which are geographically indicated foods such as Cornish pasties,
the Yorkshire pudding, Cumberland Sausage, Arbroath Smokie, and Welsh cakes.

Christmas dinner
A British Christmas dinner plate, featuring roast turkey, roast potatoes, mashed
potatoes and Brussels sprouts
Since appearing in Christmas dinner tables in England in the late 16th century,
the turkey has become more popular, with pudding served for dessert. The 16th-century
English navigator William Strickland is credited with introducing the turkey into England,
and 16th-century farmer Thomas Tusser noted that in 1573 turkeys were eaten at
Christmas dinner. Roast turkey is often accompanied with roast beef or ham, and is
served with stuffing, gravy, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes and vegetables. In addition
to Christmas pudding, trifle, mince pies, Christmas cake or a yule log are also popular
desserts.

REGIONAL SPECIALITIES

Despite recent setbacks beef is still big industry in England, and the Scottish Aberdeen
Angus is one of our most famous beef-producing breeds. Dairy cattle are also farmed
extensively -- England is famous for its creams and butters and for its sturdy and
delicious cheeses: Stilton, Cheshire and its rare cousin blue Cheshire, double
Gloucester, red Leicester, sage Derby, and of course cheddar.

Some of our more interesting dishes include:

Beefsteak, Oyster, and Kidney Pudding: Oysters may seem unlikely in this meat
pudding, but their great abundance in the Victorian age and earlier eras inspired cooks
to find ways to incorporate them creatively in many different recipes. This steamed
pudding combines the meats with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and Worcestershire,
then wraps the whole in a suet pastry.

Black Pudding: invented in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis black pudding is often served as
part of a traditional full English breakfast.

Black Pudding Recipe

Cock-a-Leekie : This Scottish specialty can be classified as a soup or a stew. It

combines beef, chicken, leeks, and prunes to unusual and spectacular ends.

Crown Roast Lamb: The crown roast encircles a stuffing of apples, bread crumbs,
onion, celery, and lemon.

Eccles Cake: Puff pastry stuffed with a spicy currant filling.

Hasty Pudding: A simple and quick (thus the name) steamed pudding of milk, flour,
butter, eggs, and cinnamon.

Irish stew: An Irish stew always has a common base of lamb, potatoes, and onion. It
could contain any number of other ingredients, depending on the cook.

Likky Pie Leeks: pork, and cream baked in puff pastry.

Mincemeat: Beef suet is used to bind chopped nuts, apples, spices, brown sugar, and
brandy into a filling for pies or pasties - not to be confused with minced meat!.

Mulligatawny Soup: What this soup is depends on who is cooking it. Originally a south
Indian dish (the name means pepper water in tamil), it has been adopted and
 extensively adapted by the British. Mulligatawny contains chicken or meat or vegetable
stock mixed with yogurt or cheese or coconut milk and is seasoned with curry and
various other spices. It is sometimes served with a separate bowl of rice.

Syllabub: In the seventeenth century, a milkmaid would send a stream of new, warm
milk directly from a cow into a bowl of spiced cider or ale. A light curd would form on top
with a lovely whey underneath. This, according to Elizabeth David, was the original
syllabub. Today's syllabub is more solid (its origins can also be traced to the
seventeenth century, albeit to the upper classes) and mixes sherry and/or brandy,
sugar, lemon, nutmeg, and double cream into a custard-like dessert or an eggnog-like
beverage, depending upon the cook.

Trifle: Layers of alcohol-soaked sponge cake alternate with fruit, custard and whipped
cream, some people add jelly, but that's for kids.

Welsh Faggots: Pig's liver is made into meatballs with onion, beef suet, bread crumbs,
and sometimes a chopped apple. Faggots used to be made to use up the odd parts of a
pig after it had been slaughtered.

Welsh Rabbit (or Rarebit): Cheese is grated and melted with milk or ale. Pepper, salt,
butter, and mustard are then added. The mix is spread over toast and baked until "the
cheese bubbles and becomes brown in appetizing-looking splashes" (Jane Grigson in
English Food, London: Penguin, 1977).

Westmoreland Pepper Cake: Fruitcake that gets a distinctive kick from lots of black
pepper. Other ingredients include honey, cloves, ginger, and walnuts.

Classic British Food and Recipes

1. Siba's Sunday Trifle. Make this elegant dessert in less than an hour with time-
saving shortcuts.
2. Bubble and Squeak Cakes
3. Chicken Tikka Masala
4. Herbed Yorkshire Pudding
5. Eton Mess
6. Scotch Egg with Curry Mayo
7. Bangers and Mash
8. Crumpets
Prehistoric Bread and Organic Barbecues: Ancient British Food

Celtic Barbecue
Britons have been barbecuing for longer than you might imagine. If you lived in Celtic
times meat would be a staple food, and the easiest way to cook meat was by skewering
it on a stick and roasting it over open flames. Shellfish could be prepared this way, too,
perhaps wrapped in some succulent seaweed. Along with your shish kebabs you might
have a bean fritter or sweet bean cakes with rock samphire fried in butter.
Baked Goods
In 1999 archaeologists discovered what they considered to be the oldest bread in
Britain: two black lumps of something that looked like charcoal but turned out to contain
barley. Bread was the “staff of life” for hard working ancient people, but it certainly didn’t
resemble a loaf of Hovis. The dough was made of coarsely-ground grains mixed with
water and laid out on hot rocks to bake. 

If the rocks were curved then you could create a bread bowl, to be filled with all kinds of
tasty tidbits such as
 Leek
 Thyme
 Bacon (a Celtic favorite)
 Smoked fish
 Sea beet
 Curd cheese
 Hazelnuts
 Plums
 Honey

Green Stuff
For an astonishing number of centuries the British people seem to have had something
against vegetables. First they were skeptical of peas, then of potatoes, and it took an
overwhelming American influence for them to adopt the modern “salad” of lettuce
topped with copious amounts of fruit, meat, and vegetables.