Sunday Roast

8 February 2007. When asked to name a traditional English food, most foreign people would probably say 'fish and chips'. However, for many British people, roast dinners are a better example of a typical English dish.

Traditionally, roasts are eaten for Sunday lunch (it takes a long time to cook, which is probably why we only have it once a week!). So what do we usually have for our roast dinner? Well,

 

1. roast meat - of course! The most popular meat for a Sunday roast is beef, but chicken, pork, lamb and turkey are commonly eaten too.

2. a sauce usually accompanies the meat. We have horseradish sauce with beef, mint sauce with lamb, apple sauce with pork and cranberry sauce with turkey.

3. roast potatoes. If you want to read more about potatoes, you can find almost everything you can imagine in our potatoes article.

4. yorkshire pudding (especially with roast beef). Although it's called a pudding, it isn't sweet. It's made from batter and is cooked in the oven in hot fat. Learn how to cook it here.

5. vegetables - lots of them! The idea is to have a selection of three, four, five or even more different vegetables. These could be carrots, broccoli, cabbage, roast parsnips, swede, sweetcorn, cauliflower, runner beans - whatever the cook decides.

6. gravy. A roast dinner just wouldn't be a roast dinner without gravy. This is a thick, brown sauce made from meat stock, meat juices and flour and is usually poured over the whole dish.

 

The good news is you don't have to live with a local family to enjoy a good roast, as there are lots of pubs that serve roast dinners every Sunday - some of them all day. So, go on - give it a try! It's guaranteed to fill you up and will keep you warm in the winter!