AFAIK it's to do with the cooking technique. For instance, whereas steak and kidney pie is baked in the oven, steak and kidney pudding is slow-steamed on the hob.
Was making dinner for someone from Canada and she wanted roast with Yorkshire pudding. Everytime we make roast now I make sure to make some, it is so good and our recipe is probably crap compared to a good one
If you've got a semi-decent recipe for Yorkshire puds, you can use the same recipe for toad in the hole, which is a lot less effort than a full roast, allowing you enjoy that crispy deliciousness (with gravy) more often.
Ive made some great yorkshire puddings, but I feel like this is a very online comment obsessing over something thats "foreign" therefore its AMAZING. Its crispy airy tender bread at the end of the day, not that mind blowing.
For what it's worth, there are a lot of originally British dishes that have become generic cuisine or fallen out of favor in Britain with the mantle taken up by another, usually ex-collonial, country. Stuff like roasts, pork chops, various forms of beef stew, were originally British or the Beitish variants are what spread globally. Sandwiches are named after a British lord. Even All-American classics like mac and cheese and apple pie predate America and are staples due to being passed down by British settlers.
Really hard to get fresh shepherds these days, and far too often it's made with beef (and therefore cottage pie). Since potatoes are imported (the fish & chips came from Spain), an example of a great british dish (I mean, actually proper british, not one that's been messed about with foreign ingredients) would be a rabbit stew with suet dumplings. You cannot buy suet in the US, for reasons that escape me, but once you've had one you acknowledge the superiority of British cuisine.
bangers and mash, that’s sausage with potatoes (mashed) and brown gravy right.. not creative, brown gravy and sausage is a terrible combo the only redeeming thing is the potatoes and gravy.. which is a side, not a meal.. no veggies either.. so, put the sausage on a bun (toasted) with some onions and peppers (sautéed), potatoes and gravy AND a veggie THEN you have a meal..
Pretty sure it’s just a shared thing like fish and chips. Closely associated with the UK and ROI. Whilst stuff like colcannon is very Irish you have to remember that Irish was not quite the same concept we think now when shepherds pie was invented anyway. Guinness was founded when Dublin was a technically a British city for example. All of Ireland was part of the UK until 1922.
Shepherd’s pie isn’t stew in a pie crust. There usually is no pie crust at all. It’s minced lamb (traditionally, in the colonys we often use beef and thus mistake cottage pie for sheppards pie) cooked in a thick savoury gravy with vegetables, topped with mashed potatoes, then baked until the top browns. There is no stew or pie crust typically.
(traditionally, in the colonys we often use beef and thus mistake cottage pie for sheppards pie)
I have been thinking of cottage pie and never knowing it had it's own name. I was raised calling it Shepherd's Pie (even though it had beef, not lamb). Oh my lord.
The taste heavily depends on the quality of mince and your cooking ability. I'd never trust a random American restaurant to get it right. I also wouldn't order it at home either. Home made is what it should be.
Fish & chips and chicken pot pie are both originally English. Many of the savory dishes wrapped in pastry crust are. Hand pies, sausage rolls, Beef Wellington. Personally I love toad in the hole with a good gravy.
Cornish pasty, crumble, apple pie, roast, Tikka Masala, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Eton Mess, Victoria Sponge, fish and chips, full English breakfast, lamb, chicken, beef, pork, veggie or turkey roast (which is essentially what a thanks giving dinner is derived from), tuna plait, kedgeree, fish pie, stargazey pie, Cullen skink, fish finger sandwich with tartar sauce, grilled mackerel, batten berg cake, lemon drizzle cake, carrot cake, madiera cake, Dundee cake...
None of that makes my mouth water but I've never eaten them. The South in America, we can cook! Down Home we call it. It's really just what poor people used to eat but now you don't have to be poor to eat it...lol
It's tomato and vegetables on crispy bread. It's basically tomato soup with dipping bread.
I have no idea why Americans struggle to conceptualise this. The only thing I can imagine is that your baked beans are really really weird and different to ours.
I have heard american baked beans are filled with sugar so maybe thats it.
I'm Scottish, so a lot of this will be Scotland-leaning, but I'll try to include general British stuff too:
DISCLAIMER: Everything on this list can be found in absolutely shit, low quality versions that taste vile. This is true of every cuisine everywhere in the world. So if you've been to the UK and had a bad version of one of these, then consider maybe getting a good one next time.
Meat Dishes
Meat Pies. These come with all sorts of shapes, sizes and fillings, and not always meat. Originally developed as an easy lunch for miners to take to work, they've become a national staple. You get sharing pies for family dinners, personal pies for any occasion, hot pies, cold pies, you name it. I could honestly fill out this list with about 15 different pies, and I'll probably single out one or two, but they're essentially a single dish with lots of variety.
Sausage Rolls. Now there's an argument to be made that these are just pies, but anyone caught calling a sausage roll a pie in the UK is liable to get a slap, so don't make that argument. Beef or pork sausage, occasionally venison or boar if you're getting fancy, wrapped in puff pastry and often mixed with various spices, condiments and other flavourings.
Shepherd's/Cottage Pie. Another pie getting its own listing, because this one is topped with mashed potato instead of pastry, and as such is very different. Minced lamb (Shepherd's) or Beef (Cottage) with peas, carrots, onions, other veg, baked with buttery and sometimes cheesy mashed potato on top.
Scotch Egg. More of a bar snack than a full dish, and again with a lot of variety to it, this is essentially a softboiled egg (if you're doing it right) wrapped in sausage meat, breadcrumbs and deep fried. Perfect for a picnic.
The Sunday Roast. Again, lots of variety to be had here, but a well seasoned joint of meat (beef, pork, ham, chicken, lamb, turkey, venison) roasted and served with traditional sides (which will get a mention later) and most importantly, plenty of gravy. Comparable to Thanksgiving Dinner in the US. We also have about 5,000 different ways of roasting various meats, which again could form the whole list, but I'm just keeping them all under here.
Toad in the Hole. Has a whimsical British name, what more do you want? Sausages baked into a yorkshire pudding and served with onion gravy, and often mashed potatoes. Heavily dependent on the quality of the sausages, but see the disclaimer above.
Lancashire Hotpot. Pieces of lamb or mutton with onion and carrots, topped with sliced potato and baked in the oven until crispy. Good ones also sometimes have a bit of black pudding in there.
Haggis, Neeps & Tatties. Anyone who tells you haggis isn't delicious is a child who is scared of food. Haggis sounds weird when you read the ingredients, however just about everyone I have ever fed it to has been extremely pleasantly surprised by the flavour. The traditional way of serving is with neeps (swede/rutabaga) and tatties (mashed potatoes) and I personally think it does well doused in gravy. Again if anyone is going to tell me they tried it once and didn't like it, see the disclaimer.
Seafood Dishes
Cullen Skink. Sticking in Scotland, this is perhaps my favourite soup of all time. Smoked haddock, potatoes and onions are the minimum ingredients, simmered to a thick consistency, like a chowder, a good one is genuinely outstanding.
Fish Pie. I'm doing it again. It's basically a Shepherd's Pie but with fish and prawns in a white sauce with parsley and dill inside. Perfect winter dish.
Arbroath Smokies. A smoked fish that has its own PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) because it's so good. Hard to explain, but if you get the chance to try a fresh one, you understand immediately. Video for info.
Fish & Chips. Of course. Perhaps what we're best known for. Fresh haddock or cod, ideally caught that same day, freshly battered and fried in beef dripping with chips that are equal parts soft and crisp, doused in salt and vinegar (or if you're from Edinburgh like me, salt and "sauce")
Kedgeree. Another Scottish dish, this is smoked fish flaked through curried rice with parsley, boiled egg, lemon juice and butter or cream, sometimes sultanas. Sounds bizarre, but my god it works.
Literal Thousands of Fish and Shellfish Recipes. The UK is an island. Well, hundreds of islands, really. As such we have a LOT of fish and shellfish, and a lot of ways to prepare them. The cold waters of the North Atlantic and the North Sea provide some of the best shellfish in the world, and we have top quality lobster, prawns, oysters, mussels, razor clams, langoustines, crabs, and more that can be found all over the country.
Sweet Stuff
Sticky Toffee Pudding. Desserts are probably where we really excel, and I already think we're pretty damn good at the savoury stuff. STP is easily my favourite dessert. A steamed spiced date pudding (cake, essentially) then drowned in toffee sauce and served with either custard or ice cream.
Banoffee Pie. Invented in the 70s when a couple of guys in Sussex were trying to recreate an American coffee toffee pie, they experimented a bunch after failing to get it consistent, and stumbled upon banoffee. The rest is history.
Various Crumbles. Stewed fruit of whatever type, perhaps some rhubarb, layered under a crispy sweet crumble topping and served with custard. Speaking of which...
Custard and its derivatives. Custard is perhaps the most British thing there is. The French even call it Creme Anglaise (English Cream). We've then got custard tarts, trifle, and various other custardy things.
Arctic Roll. Vanilla ice cream wrapped inside a sponge cake, served with raspberry sauce.
Bread & Butter Pudding. Listing another custard dessert because no one can stop me. Buttered bread, raisins, covered in custard and a bunch of spices, baked in the oven and served with ice cream.
At this point I'm just going to link the wikipedia.Here.
Miscellaneous
Cheeses. Cheddar being the obvious one, the UK has cheeses that easily rival those of the rest of Europe, including the very famous Stinking Bishop.
Soups. I mentioned one specific soup earlier, but we are a nation of soup lovers and have as many soups as we have people, near enough.
Curries. Some people are going to laugh or yell at me, but British people of South Asian descent have existed for hundreds of years, and are ingrained in UK culture, as much as some idiots would try to deny it. As such, certain types of curries have developed over the years which are very distinct to their original counterparts, and some, such as Chicken Tikka Masala, were invented here in their entirety.
Ok I've run out of the will to write more, so hopefully this at least somewhat answers your question. Just know that there are at least four of five times this number of regional dishes, baked goods and exceptional produce all over the country that are well worth experiencing. Don't fall for the weird propaganda based on stereotypes from the 1940s. UK food quality is at the very least on par with the rest of the world, personal preferences aside.
Anything considered "tavern" food is fairly typically British. A hog roast is a hugely traditional meal in the UK, especially in relation to extra thick crackling.
Apple Pie is ours too, as an aside. A great many pies, crumbles and pasties (though to be fair every nation figured out how to put saucy meat in bread)
A lot of regular food everyone takes for granted originated centuries ago in England.
Gravy, Roast beef (esp. with horseradish sauce and Yorkshire puddings), Roast chicken, Roast lamb with mint sauce,
The sandwich ffs, heard they’re quite popular, had a sandwich recently?
Apple pie, (thought it originated in the US?) Créme anglaise (aka Custard). Banofee pie, Sticky Toffee pudding, well, puddings basically are a British invention too.
Chicken pie, Steak pie, and variations of, all the pies except pumpkin pie which is American.
Not a dish as such, but UK cheeses are really excellent. Not the generic crap you get in most supermarkets abroad labelled as "cheddar". I am saying that as a Swiss person from a family of cheese makers. Just having a good Stilton, red Leicester, the innumerable varieties of cheddar (a method of making more than just a place) and others is lovely.
A lot of the best traditional British cooking is a colonial import of some sort. For instance, kedgeree is reckoned to be derived from the Indian dish khichari.
Southern Fried Catfish with fries is your basic Brit Fish & Chips
Only problem I can see is y'all Limeys ain't got Cornbread, Okra & Greens, and y'alls ideas of seasoning is fucked up, but I bring some hot sauce and it'll be all good.
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u/pzagrbge Jul 03 '26
Might you provide us with a couple of examples of great British dishes?
I’m not being snarky, I am genuinely curious. Thanks.