Minced or chopped beef, mixed or topped with vegetables, then topped with mashed potatoes and baked. Before mincing machines came along in the 1870s, it would have been made with chunks of meat, and before the British grudgingly started eating the potato at the end of the 1700s, it would have been topped with a…
British Food
Cracklings
Cracklings are pieces of pork fat fried until they are crunchy and crisp. They are usually made from salt pork or fatback with the skin on. They are used as both an ingredient in dishes, and as a garnish, to add both flavour and texture. They can be sprinkled on braised collard greens, crumbled into…
Cream Crackers
Cream Crackers are pale brown crackers that are usually made square. They are made from flour, salt and a small amount of fat, mixed with milk or milk and water. The dough is rolled into thin sheets with holes punched into the dough to allow steam to escape during baking.
Crosse & Blackwell
Crosse & Blackwell is the brand name of a well-known English line of foodstuffs founded in London in 1829.
Crumpets
Crumpets are round, flat, moist yeast-risen breads about 4 inches wide (10 cm.) They are made from a very thick, unsweetened batter with yeast in it. Metal rings are placed on top of a hot griddle, and the batter poured into them. The batter is cooked until the bottom is brown. During this time, the…
Cumberland Ham
Cumberland Ham is a dry-cured ham made from the lower shank of a pig’s hind leg. The ham is rubbed with salt, saltpetre, brown sugar or black treacle and dry-cured for one month. Some people use molasses and malt vinegar in their cure. Then the rub is washed off, then the ham is air-dried for…
Cumberland Rum Butter
Cumberland Rum Butter is a sweetened dessert sauce. It is classed as a “hard sauce”, as it is meant to be spooned, rather than poured, onto a dessert. It is based on butter, flavoured with rum, nutmeg, and Barbados sugar. Sometimes a raw egg yolk and other spices such as cinnamon, are added; sometimes the…
Cumberland Sausage
Cumberland Sausage is a coarsely-textured English pork sausage, seasoned with pepper, herbs and spices, that is made as a single sausage of one unbroken link up to four feet (1.2 metres) long, wound into a coil. The uncooked sausage will be pinkish inside, with specks of the seasonings visible. The name “Cumberland Sausage” is protected…
Curry Dishes
A curry is a dish cooked in a spicy sauce that is a mixture of spices.In India, a curry will have about 20 spices crushed in a mortar, then mixed. The spices are then “woken up” by heating them in a bit of fat such as ghee or oil. Curries can be mild, medium or…
Custard
Custard is like what North Americans call a pudding, made from egg and milk. The coagulation of egg protein thickens the milk during cooking. It can be sweet or savoury.
Custard Powder
Custard Powder © Denzil Green Custard Powder is not actually custard which has been dried into a powder. It’s mostly a starch that has been coloured yellow, sweetened and flavoured so that when hot milk is added the starch will make not only thicken the liquid, as a starch is bound to do anyway, but…
Delia Smith
Delia Smith is a cook book writer and food television celebrity in England. A recommendation from her for a certain food ingredient or cooking tool guarantees it will disappear from the shelves.
Digestive Biscuits
Digestive Biscuits are made from a mix of coarse wholewheat and white flours. They are firm, but still soft (rather than being crisp, like Crackers or Water Biscuits.) The biscuits are semi-sweet. They can be served as a sweet (you can even buy them already covered with milk chocolate), or you can use the plain…
Dorset Knobs
Dorset Knobs are light, crisp, dry biscuits about the size and shape of a golf ball, and a shelf life just about as long. They are made in an English village at Stoke Mills, Marshwood Vale, in West Dorset. Dorset Knobs are made from wheat flour, white sugar, water, oil and yeast (originally, the recipe…
Double Cream
Double Cream © Denzil Green Double Cream is a very thick dairy cream. It contains a minimum fat content of 48%. It is produced by centrifugal force to separate the butterfat from the milk. Double Cream may be slightly homogenised under low pressure to give a little extra body. Cooking Tips The fat content of…
Dream Topping
Dream Topping is a whipped non-dairy topping sold in the UK for desserts that is made at home by the consumer from a powder. It is sold in envelopes. Each Dream Topping envelope has 1.3 oz / 36 g of white powder in it. You add 125 ml (4 oz / ½ cup) of cold…
Egon Ronay: Restaurant Critic
Egon Ronay was one of the world’s most famous restaurant reviewers. The reviews were conducted anonymously and to maintain his integrity he would never accept any gifts or free items from restaurants or hotels.
Elderflower Cordial
Elderflower cordial is a sweet, floral tasting syrup with a lemon tang. To make it, the elderflowers are best gathered when they are still young and cream coloured, rather than older and purer white. Shake the flowers well to get any insects out. You make a sugar syrup, and pour it hot over the flowers…
Eliza Acton: Victorian Cookbook Author
Eliza Acton authored two popular Victorian cookbooks. Hers were the first in England to list ingredients separately from the instructions (though she put the ingredients after them.) She was so popular that even Mrs Beeton blatantly plagiarized from her.
Elizabeth Craig
Elizabeth Craig was a prolific 20th century cookbook writer, writing over 40 books. She was Scottish but worked most of her career in England.
Elizabeth David
Elizabeth was the first cookbook writer not to be a home economist or a cook. Her writing style was evocative, descriptive and lavish, talking about food ingredients and drawing on literature and history.
Elizabeth Raffald
Elizabeth Raffald was the author of the popular 18th century book, ‘The Experienced English Housekeeper’, with over 800 recipes. She was a very modern woman for her times, running several businesses as well.
English Morello Cherries
English Morello Cherries are medium-sized sour cherries. They have dark red skin, red flesh, and give off red juice. If someone says just “Morello” cherry, this is often the kind that is meant.
English Muffins
English Muffins are round, flat, yeast-risen breads about 4 inches wide (10 cm) and half an inch to an inch thick (1 to 2.5 cm.) They are not baked in an oven but cooked on top a griddle. They have a soft, coarse, bread-like texture to them, with lots of small holes inside. They are…