Ira

You crack me up, your an absolute howl!!

I got a great English Dinner menu from Bon Appetite quite a few years ago. You may be able to do a search. Also to make it really fun I bought a Murder Mystery kit and invited other couples over for a full on dress up English Dinner and Murder Mystery. It was a blast!

Ira after a few months of this site for once I disagree custard is critical centre to UK life.

Cwojo99

I see three routes are you trying to give a dinner party so that your SO ??? understands that part of dining or are you trying to get her/him ready for street food or English restaurant food.

A dinner party is kinda formal and will normally amount to at least 3 stages. Entree something like smoked salmon, soup, garlic bread. Main would be a wide range of things depending on ethnicity or dietery habits but based on the massive list above chicken tikka or toad in the hole fits in perfectly. Dessert would be one of UK's best puddings which includes corny old creme brullee to spotted dick and various seasonal regional stodgy pudding with say cream, icecream or HOT CUSTARD on it. Finally an extra course of cheese occurs normally after but sometimes before the pudding.

Wine through out normally £5 to £10 "red" or "white" ( the three worst words in the english language)and occasionally something good. Add heating and 4 hours of fun and you can drunkenly go home. The UK wine market is the most widely ranging in the world so you really will find stuff from Uruaguay to Alsace.

Street food..... Think expensive versions of USA chains though smaller portions and less fat/sugar. You know chips with everything. Fish in the street is interesting as the type of fish, batter and fat it is cooked in varies widely. Luckily UK does not follow the Belgiums in cooking in horse fat but depending on area everything from Olive oil to Beef dripping can be used. Batter is designed to soak up the fat so what kids get out of it is a massive fat soaked, salt darked crisp batter with a bit of un-identifed fish in side it. What kid could turn that down.

Restaurants... low cost £10 a sitting, leave it in the street
>£10 chose a nation (Italian/Chinese/"Indian" (means meat based Pakistani for majority/ Thai/Vietmanise/French/Australian/English) and visit the restaurant. Note that while having a license to sell wine can be won by most restaurants some ethnic groups do not drink hence the wine waiter in a Pakistani restaurant may never have tasted the acid stripper he pours into your glass. The concept of carry-in or corkage is seldom seen but can occur where no license is held (EG the Kashmeri in Bradford. It is also possible to dring beer in restaurants though normally lower price. Beer comes in various types so while the USA type lagers are available worth looking out for warm flat beer with local tastes.

There are some other fodor lists in the system on food

When I did a Hogwarts Christmas Feast for my book group we had roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, mushy peas, roasted potatoes, roasted carrots, and treacle tart. It went down a treat.

Yorkshire pudding is not that hard.
A few keys to remember: Use beef fat in the bottom of the pan (or popover bakers); heat whatever you're baking it in WITH THE FAT in it...and make sure you've made the batter a few hours ahead of time ...
(I've had to cheat once or twice or twenty...and have kept the fat from say, another roast, just in case the roast I'm doing doesn't make enough "juice" to make my gravy, roast a carrot or two in AND make my Yorkshires.)

SuzieQ- Oh!Honey, I have had every TV Chef from Great Britain showing me how to make Yorkie Pud and believe me I've tried!
Some say 'rest the batter', some say add an extra egg white, others say equal quatities of milk, flour & eggs.
Fat, Lard, oil.......all as hot as Hades.
From Keith Floyd to Brian Turner to Gary Rhodes.........I still failed!

I agree with Bilboburgler and Miss Prism. So I suggest a starter such as smoked salmon or soup and a main course of roast leg or shoulder of lamb, mint sauce, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, two or three other fresh vegetables, (parsnip is good with lamb) boiled just to the moment a fork goes in, gravy from the lamb liquid. If you serve lamb you need not battle with Yorkshire pudding, nor for perfect crackling. Now comes pudding (you saw me smile). In summer probably sherry trifle (please no jelly in it) with cream, in winter a pie, sponge or crumble, with custard. You guide is what is in season, so you can stand in the fruiterer’s and choose what looks good among rhubarb crumble, cherry pie, raspberry sponge, plum pie, apple pie (made of such cookers as Bramleys, with to cloves), or sultana sponge (with the sultanas soaked six hours or so in red wine). Please serve things hot, on heated plates or bowls, and keep food in serving bowls in or on a low oven, or on a moderate hotplate if you have one. It helps to appoint people to carve, look after wine, and even to skivvy between oven and table.
The heart of the meal is good, fresh, produce. I like what the French do with sauces, but my cooking says that what is on the table are the natural tastes of the food. So one leaves things alone. The joint goes into a pan and into the oven, the vegetables boil to the perfect moment (so you have to know by experiment their cooking times before you start), the pie is flour, butter, water, fruit, and sugar. The English have no mysteries. Rather, both nations put love into their cooking: you will have noted that all of these are good food for growing children.

Ben Haines, London
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tod, maybe you've done better than you think. I've had Yorkshire pud that English people around me raved about, but it still tasted like a bunch of tasteless, greasy dough to me. But then I think the same thing about those popovers that some people rave about.

A good Yorkshire pudding is basically a popover cooked in drippings. Here's the Sticky Toffee Pudding I've made. I don't even like dates but I love STF. Also like a good Banoffee pie.

http://tinyurl.com/y7zmz6

If you google "nigella lawson recipe search easy sticky-toffee pudding" the first result is an incredibly easy and reliable recipe for a British stodgy pudding. (I haven't put a link in because the address is long - I'll find out about tiny urls one of these days). I've used it for a couple of dinner parties and it has wow factor with zero effort. You can serve it with custard or double cream.

To second Ben Haines' comment - trifle is very English, but to be good must contain lots of sherry and NO JELLY. Also proper whipped cream and not the horrid squirty kind.

Gosh so many replies. I am english and I don't think you can go wrong with bangers(sausage) & mash. It really depends on how fancy you want to go.
Fish n chips served in packing paper is fun w salt & Vinegar of course.
Roast Lamb or beef with yorkshire pud is great if you like cooking.
Trifle is quite easy to make. I recently searched the net until I found a really simple recipe. It was GREAT and my AMerincan inlaws loved it.
I love Delia recipes and someone gave you the website for that. good luck

Try some sort of pie... on my trip to England I had a Chicken and Broccoli pie that was amazing. Then take your SO to Porters in London and see if your meal met the English standards.

Porters? The place that exists for tourists who arrive with all their coupons and freebies with package theatre deals? That's the only way that place is able to stay in business. I sure hope your attempt is better than theirs!

Banoffee pudding?

As for Yorkie Pud, that could get PETA after you.

A 'popover' - what's that? Is it something you buy at a supermarket and then go home and cook it again in fat - then it becomes Yorkshire (Note Underhill) pudding?
NeoPatrick thanks for the kind encouragement. We get perfectly 'inflated', hollow inside, crisp outside Yorkshire puds at a hotel a few miles away, but when I try to do them everything always comes out of the oven resembling muffins?! Sort of spongy.
Oh well, sigh.............

I have my paternal grandmothers Yorkshire Pudding receipe. Although I haven't prepared it in years it is fantastic. Wish I could cook it for you Patrick.

Tod, one of the tricks to getting nice crispy "inflated" Yorkshire puds is to make sure the pan and fat are smoking hot before pouring the batter in.

LoveItaly - Maybe you could let me try it?
hanl - I think it may be my oven. Or the position of the rack? High up or low down? What'yer think?

Hello tod, I am happy to share my paternal grandmother's receipe which goes back generations in her family.

After cooking the roast (whatever kind); actually prepare the batter during the last say 10 minutes that the roast needs to cook.

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs well beaten
1 cup of milk
1/4 cup of beef drippings.

Sift together flour and salt.
Combine eggs and milk.
Add the liquid (eggs and milk) to the flour mixture and beat thoroughly until batter is smooth.

Pour the beef drippings, bubbling hot into a pan (8" X 8&quot. Next pour the batter into the same pan.

Bake in a preheated oven at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. The rack in the oven should be in the middle of the oven. The pan should be uncovered.

Cut into squares and serve hot with the roast beef. Enjoy!!!

Yorkshire puddings are notoriously difficult to get right, so one way out in the U.K. is to buy frozen ones. "Aunt Bessie's" is a well-known brand (www.trytonfoods.co.uk/), but I think there are own-label and other versions. They are better than most home-made ones. It might be an idea to set up a business to export them to the U.S., but there is the exchange rate to consider ... The dollar seems to be doing down faster than most people's Yorkshire puddings.