Tim Worstall

English Cooking.

Yes, yes, I know, English cooking is terrible. Stodge and grease served lukewarm.

Except, as anyone who’s ever actually looked around the country knows, the food can be excellent. There’s been a little competition to find the best book of Brit recipies and Simon Hopkinson won it. Have a look at this recipe for roast chicken. Simple, elegant and quite wonderful. I’ll admit that my own version drops the thyme and tarragon and adds a half onion to be cooked in the cavity, but otherwise is just about the same.

The point about such cooking is that you have to start with decent ingredients. Some battery bird that’s been fed on fishmeal will be disgusting this way. Free range or better only. Perhaps that’s why English food has such a bad reputation nowadays, the quality of the ingredients generally used?

Update. Looks like the Pedant G’s (wife?sister?cousin?) is on the list at number 6 as well.

In

18 responses

  1. Katie Bartleby Avatar
    Katie Bartleby

    I put little shallots around the chicken so they are mouthwateringly sweet and oozy.
    And I don’t a squeeze the lemon out. It makes the chicken MUCH more tangy if it’s inside unsqueezed.
    Plus, I put bacon over the top to keep the moisture in for the first hour, then turn up the heat to get the skin properly crispy.
    Sorry. I really like cooking. Especially roasting things.

    Reply
  2. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    katie, I trust you grow your own tarragon?

    Reply
  3. N.I.B. Avatar
    N.I.B.

    It’s true that the linked recipe would only work with a free-range bird – a cheap one would leave you with a ‘gravy’ that’s 99% fat.
    I made that mistake one time, back when I wasn’t wise to the difference. I made up the gravy all traditional like, with the juices & flour & cabbage water. It was all hunky dory until about 15 minutes into the meal, when the gravy started to separate in the jug and the guests turned green…

    Reply
  4. Katie Bartleby Avatar
    Katie Bartleby

    No. I am a serial killer of plants. I kill cacti. The problem with the bunches of fresh herbs from the market though, is that there is far too much for just one dish and you’re stuck eating tarragon flavoured everything for a week.

    Reply
  5. Katie Bartleby Avatar
    Katie Bartleby

    Sorry, one more thing, the next best thing to fresh herbs, IMHO, is those little jars of crushed herbs in oil you can get. The more delicate ones should be frozen fresh, if you want to keep them long-term, but the jars are brilliant for pungent things like coriander and basil and well, tarragon.

    Reply
  6. N.I.B. Avatar
    N.I.B.

    Now here’s what I’d like to know – I’ve never seen any basil plants on sale at garden centres. Is is that because it isn’t possible to grow basil in our intemperate climate?

    Reply
  7. Katie Bartleby Avatar
    Katie Bartleby

    Are you kidding? My sister lives in Glasgow and has a basil plant on her window sill. It’s flourishing. Tastes a bit watery though.

    Reply
  8. N.I.B. Avatar
    N.I.B.

    That’s odd. Maybe someone been going round buying them up before I get there.
    (they’re always doing that to me, they are, whoever they might be)

    Reply
  9. Katie Bartleby Avatar
    Katie Bartleby

    Try the supermarket instead of the garden centre. I know sainsbury’s and asda carry them. At least, glasgwiegian ones do. You can get wee ickle pots for 99p.
    (sorry tim)
    Tim asks: Is this to garnish the deep fried mars bar?

    Reply
  10. Katie Bartleby Avatar
    Katie Bartleby

    Never had one. Sound vile. Look vile.

    Reply
  11. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    Tesco do pots of basil plants, which we separate and plant out once the risk of frost is past. Much neater than raising your own from seed and (we tell ourselves) tastier than keeping the pot on the window-sill.

    Reply
  12. dsquared Avatar
    dsquared

    That’s not an English recipe by any stretch of the imagination. It’s got garlic and lemon in it and the guy goes out of his way to point out that it doesn’t use a British-style gravy.
    Jane Grigson did a very good book on English cooking, but most of the recipes in it are very heavy stuff indeed. That (basically French) recipe for poulet isn’t anything like it.

    Reply
  13. john b Avatar
    john b

    Surely English food’s bad reputation is entirely historical, rather than being based on anything that’s real and ongoing?

    Reply
  14. Katie Bartleby Avatar
    Katie Bartleby

    I think precisely the ability of english food to absorb and adapt other culture’s food marks it out as wonderful. Same with our language. That’s a low-brow version of french you’re speaking there dsquared. If it weren’t for “foreign influence” you’d still be communicating in grunts and sucking raw eggs.

    Reply
  15. John Burgess Avatar
    John Burgess

    I wonder if the British reputation for bad food doesn’t come exactly from the problem of bad ingredients, exacerbated by the extended post-WWII rationing.
    That certainly seems the excuse of the run-of-the-mill banger, with over 50% filler. If you’ve forgotten what good food actually tastes like, then it’s hard to be fussy.

    Reply
  16. David Gillies Avatar
    David Gillies

    I put pats of parsley butter under the skin of the breast, put three or four rashers of smoked streaky bacon over the top, use an apple cut into chunks rather than a lemon, and also a large onion cut into eighths up its jacksie, but apart from that my recipe’s fairly close. I also put a cup or so of cheap-but-good dry white wine in the pan. Makes the gravy even yummier. It’s hard carving a bird that’s been cooked this way—it’s too tender.
    Another good technique is to drink half a can of beer, stuff a bunch of spices and herbs in the can, stand the bird up with the can in the cavity, and roast away. Unbelievably moist and flavourful.
    I always use free-range, unfrozen birds. As the man says, the jus in the bottom of the pan is perfect for gravy.

    Reply
  17. JohnM Avatar
    JohnM

    British cooking used to be considered amongst the best in Europe around the time of Henry VIII.
    The decline is put down to several villains including Protestantism, Mrs Beeton and convoying in two wars.
    The funny thing about the reputation is that it is known about most everywhere. I can take comments from a Frenchman or an Italian, but even the Poles, Norwegians and Finns get a dig in.

    Reply
  18. Chris harper Avatar
    Chris harper

    A couple of centuries ago English food had a superb reputation (sorry, no references, I am relying on old memory here). Apparently that reputation went south shortly after the time of the Industrial Revolution. People moved from the land to the cities, access to ingredients was lost, time to do the job was lost, so the knowledge was lost from the general population. I do know that the books I have on traditional British cooking leave my mouth watering just from turning the pages.
    Stargazy Pie.
    Yum.

    Reply

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