English cuisine

• English cuisine is shaped by the country's temperate climate, its island geography and its history. The latter includes interactions with other European countries, and the importing of ingredients and ideas from places such as North America, China and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of post-war immigration.

Some general facts about englishcuisine

Haggies

• Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish.

• There are many recipes, most of which have in common the following ingredients: sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately an hour.

Recipe for haggisHaggis IngredientsMethod:Wash the stomach bag thoroughly, first in cold water, then, scraping, in hot water. Leave to lie overnight in a bowl of cold salted water. Wash again carefully and place in a pan of boiling water to cover, with the windpipe hanging over the side. Add 1 tsp salt and boil for 2 hours. Remove from pan and cut away the windpipe and any gristle.

There is a legend connected with the origin and ingredients of thehaggis. However, it is - and always will be - Scotland's greatestnational dish, piped in with great ceremony at Burns supperseverywhere. It is served with neeps and tatties (turnips andpotatoes) and washed down with nips of whisky.

Traditional english breakfast• A full breakfast is a traditional cooked

breakfast, comprising at its heart bacon and eggs, that is popular throughout the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and other parts of the English speaking world. Depending on where it is served, it is called bacon and eggs, a fry, fry up, full English breakfast, full Irish breakfast, full Scottish breakfast, full Welsh breakfast or an Ulster fry . The complement of the breakfast varies depending on the location and which of these descriptions is used. Full cooked breakfasts are no longer an everyday occurrence in many British or Irish households, although they occupy an important place in the concept of the morning meal and are the predominant business of many greasy spoon cafés, as well as generally being offered to tourists as traditional fare in hotels, guest houses and bed-and-breakfasts. Although it has declined as a breakfast it has grown in popularity as an all day breakfast especially at weekends.

British beer festival

• The Great British Beer Festival (often shortened to GBBF) is a yearly beer festivalorganised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). It presents a selection of cask ales and other alcoholic drinks from the UK and beyond.

• GBBF is styled as the "biggest pub in the world" and offers around 450 beers from British breweries, as well as around 200 foreign beers from countries including Belgium, Germany and the USA. Traditional British cider and perry is also available. The festival is completely staffed by unpaid volunteers, around 1000 of whom work at the festival.

Tea in The United Kingdom• Teas have been cultivated for thousands of

years in Asia. Based on differences in morphology between Camellia sinensis var. assamica and Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, botanists have long asserted a dual botanical origin for tea.

•The importation of tea into Britain began in 1660 with the marriage of King Charles II with the Portuguese

princess Catherine of Braganza where she brought to the court the habit of drinking tea.. In the same year

Samuel Pepys records drinking "a china drink of which I had never drunk before"]. It is probable that early

imports came via Amsterdam or through sailors on eastern boats Regular trade began in Guangzhou

(Canton). Trade was controlled by two monopolies; the Chinese Hongs (trading companies) and the British East India Company]. The Hongs acquired tea from 'the tea

men' who had an elaborate supply chain into the mountains and provinces where the tea was grown.

Gravy Gravy is a type of sauce, an old traditional English recipe, usually made from the juices that naturally run from meat or vegetables during cooking. Ready made cubes and powders can also be used as a substitute for natural meat or vegetable extracts. Canned gravys are also available. Gravy is commonly served with a roast dinner, Sunday roasts, meatloaf, rice, or with mashed or other popular types of potato dishes.Types of gravy

White gravy may contain milk or cream but most often it is simply meat drippings to which white flour has been added. This may also be known as cream gravy, country gravy, or sawmill gravy. Sometimes little bits of meat are mixed into the gravy. This is the gravy typically used in biscuits and gravy and chicken fried steak. Tomato gravy is a gravy made from canned tomatoes, flour, and usually a small amount of fat. This is a Southern U.S. dish.

• Shepherd's pie is a traditional English dish that consists of a bottom layer of minced (ground) meat covered with mashed potato and optionally a layer of cheese.The mince is traditionally lamb (hence Shepherd) although in North America it is often made with minced (ground) beef which is also known as a cottage pie.

Shepherd's pie

A shepherd's pie made with beef is called a cottage pie. Often, such pies were made with meat left over from a Sunday roast. A similar dish made with fish instead of meat is called a fisherman's pie, or if in a cream sauce it is called "admiral's pie".

Shepherd's Pie with minced (ground) beef.

Fish and chips

• Fish and chips or fish 'n' chips, a popular take-away food with British origins, consists of deep-fried fish in batter or breadcrumbs with deep-fried potatoes.

Service counter in an Irish fish-and-chip shopIn the United Kingdom, fish and chips became a cheap food popular among the working classes with the rapid development of trawl fishing in the North Sea in the second half of the nineteenth century. Before then, fishermen had used long lines to target only large, high-quality demersal (bottom-dwelling) fish, especially valuable sole

History

Fish and chips in modern packaging

Apple pie• In cooking, an apple pie is a fruit pie (or tart) in which the principal filling ingredient is

apples (Cooking Apples). Pastry is generally used top-and-bottom, making a double-crust pie, the upper crust of which may be a pastry lattice woven of strips; exceptions are deep-dish apple pie with a top crust only, and open-face Tarte Tatin.

IngredientsCooking apples (culinary apples, colloquially cookers), such as the Bramley or Granny Smith, are crisp and acidic. The fruit for the pie can be fresh, canned, or reconstituted from dried apples.

Main information about cheddar

Cheddar cheese is a hard, pale yellow to orange, sharp-tasting cheese originally (and still) made in the English village of Cheddar, in Somerset. Cheddar cheese is the most popular cheese in the United Kingdom.

The mammoth cheese

A still larger Wisconsin Cheddar cheese of 15,853 kg was produced for the 1964 New York World's Fair. It required the equivalent of the daily milk production of 16,000 cows.