Recently Added Recipes

Crispy Sesame Chicken Thighs
I don't know if this is a common dish in British Chinese takeaways, but I've certainly had something like it in Madrid. It's very easy and quick to make, and very tasty.

Meatloaf
Like apple pie and hamburgers, meatloaf is almost a synonym for American cooking. It usually has a tomato ketchup-based glaze, but this recipe doesn't. It has a very tasty gravy instead.

Simnel Cake
Variations of this cake have been around for centuries, but it is a bit scarce these days. A simnel cake is similar to a Christmas fruit cake, but much less dense and heavy. It has a secret stash of marzipan inside and on the top. The top is also decorated with marzipan balls - eleven of them to represent the Apostles (Judas doesn't get one). The version in this recipe is basically the Lancashire one from Bury. There's also a Shropshire one that includes saffron.

Panackelty
I was born in County Durham and spent the first five years of my life there. My mother spent half her life there. So it's no surprise that this North-East-English dish was a regular feature on our dinner table. I always thought it was called 'fanackerty', but it can also be called panackelty, panaculty, panackaty, panackerty and many other similar spellings. It's basically a stew of potato, onion and corned beef, although it can have bacon, sausages, leftover meat, other root vegetables. It's common throughout County Durham and south Tyneside. There's another thing called 'pan haggerty' - that's onion, potatoes and cheese and is common in Northumberland, Cumbria and Lancashire.

Bedfordshire Clanger
This traditional pastry from Bedfordshire has a few things in common with the Cornish pasty - it was a way for agricultural workers to take food to work with them. The pastry crust is like a big sausage roll and it contains a meaty filling in one end, and a sweet dessert in the other. In this recipe my savoury filling is pork and cider, and the sweet is apple and sultanas. Herefordshire also lays claim to inventing the clanger.

Stuffed Crust Minced Beef Pasty
I bought a Cornish pasty a few weeks ago, and as I was munching my way through the inch-thick, tasteless, and hugely fattening semi-circular crust, I though it would be immeasurably improved by stuffing it with cheese, as is sometimes done with pizzas. Of course, you can't even think about doing that to a regular Cornish pasty without the entire population of Cornwall descending on your head, so this is not, in any way, to be mistaken for or described as a Cornish pasty. It's filled with minced beef in gravy. With cheese. The crust is stuffed. With cheese. It's delicious. With cheese.

Oxtail Soup
Oxtail soup is an intensely meaty, fairly smooth soup. Served with some crunchy bread, it's a delicious winter warmer that brings back (for me at least) memories of childhood.

Jaffa Cakes
In 1929, McVitie and Price introduced the Jaffa cake. While it is technically a cake (the base is Genoise sponge) it is eaten like a biscuit.

Chicken & Vegetable Pie
I started making this because the recipe I'd been recommended called it a 'pot' pie, and I've always wondered what makes a pot pie special. Turns out it's nothing at all - a pot pie can be double or single crusted, just like pies everywhere else. And there doesn't seem to be a 'pot' involved anywhere. The other thing about that recipe was it was designed for an Instant Pot (AKA pressure cooker) - again, this is nonsense - it's just the filling which is cooked under pressure for 4 minutes - by the time you add in building up the pressure and then getting rid of it, you could have made it the regular way on the stovetop. Those niggles aside, this is a gorgeous pie.

Newfoundland Jiggs Dinner
A true Jigg's Dinner is just boiled beef and cabbage, maybe with boiled potatoes and gravy. But the Newfoundland version has expanded to include pease pudding, 3-4 root vegetables, a turkey or chicken, stuffing, and for dessert, figgy duff (a boiled raisin pudding). If you didn't spend your childhood growing up in North America in the 20th Century, you might not be aware of a syndicated cartoon strip called 'Bringing Up Father'. The main character of this is Jiggs, an Irish immigrant who wins $1 million and can't adjust to his new life. All he wants is to hang out with his mates and eat boiled beef and cabbage.

Scouse
Scouse is the 'national dish' of Liverpool and Merseyside. Adapted from the Lobskause of Norwegian sailors in the city, it gave the denizens their nickname. It's a simple stew of mutton (and/or beef), carrots and potatoes, and is always served with pickled red cabbage or beetroot.

Vegetarian Steak Slice
Recently there's been a surge in supermarkets and fast food chains offerings of 'vegan' options. I put 'vegan' in quotes, because true hair-shirt and rope sandals vegans will complain that veganism is an entire lifestyle that goes with the diet. And that these burgers and so on are just mimicking popular meat-based dishes. But for the majority of folks who just want to eat less meat and fish but aren't keen on lettuce and lentils, this opens up a whole new range of possibilities. This recipe is my attempt to make a copy of the Greggs Vegan steak slice.

Vegan Pulled Jackfruit Sandwich
Jackfruit is a very large fruit, similar to durian, that grows in south-east Asia. It was largely ignored until 5-10 years ago when people in the west realised its fibrous texture would be a good substitute for pork or chicken in vegan cookery. Cans of the unripe young fruit are now easily available in supermarkets. This sandwich is obviously a vegan version of pulled pork, and it's very hard to tell the difference in taste and texture between this and the pork version.

Tzatziki
Tzatziki is one of those Greek things that always seems to find its way onto the table along with hummus, taramasalata and other little dippy treats. It's crazily easy to make from only 3 or 4 ingredients.

The New Veganism
A new wave of veganism is sweeping the land - fuelled by high street bakers and burger chains offering meat-free versions of their world-destroying Meat v1.0 products.

Lancashire Butter Pie
These pies have been made in Lancashire (especially Preston/Chorley/Wigan) for centuries as a response to the ban on meat-eating on Fridays by the Catholic church. The pies were known as Friday pies or Catholic pies. If you want to make vegetarian versions of this, omit the lard from the pastry and add more butter.

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