reference: mrs-b

(Or ellicksander)

Steamed pudding of dried fruit (currants, sultanas) in cake mixture (Mrs.B)

Sweet cake flavoured with almond. Top decorated with almonds (Mrs.B, etc)

Ground almonds with butter, sugar, eggs, rosewater and mace. "Bake these in little tins, in cold butter paste." (Moxon 1764, Mrs.B)

Puff paste circles decorated with almond 'petals' (Mrs.B)

Batter of "2 tablespoonfuls of flour, 2 oz. of butter, 2 oz. of pounded sugar, 2 oz. of sweet almonds, 4 bitter almonds." Baked in small pots and turned-out (Mr...

Pounded anchovies, spiced and garnished, on toast (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc)

Individual oysters wrapped in bacon and baked, served on a fried bread sippet. An alternative to 'Devils on Horseback' (qv).

Sweetened apple pulp with butter, yolks and whole egg, lemon, in small pastry cases, baked (Mrs.B)

Round slices of apple, with core removed, battered and fried. Known since Moxon 1764, Mrs.B, etc.

Apple pieces boiled in ginger-flavoured syrup (Mrs.B)

Apple puree beaten to a froth with egg whites and sugar. Mrs.B garnished hers with preserved Barberries, or strips of bright-coloured jelly.

Trimmed apples with parboiled rice packed around, wrapped in cloth and boiled (Webster 1852, Mrs.B)

Pureed apple with stock "white pepper, 6 cloves, cayenne or ginger to taste" (Mrs.B, Hartley 1954, etc)

Apple puree with citrus, egg yolk custard over, whipped cream on top (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc)

Whole, trimmed, apples, baked and served with a jelly of their juice with gelatine and cochineal. (Mrs.B)

Apricot puree in set custard, moulded (Mrs.B)

Case filled with stoned apricot halves (Mrs.B, etc)

Lemon water thickened with arrowroot. Wine, spices etc. may be added. A sauce for dry puddings (Mrs.B, etc)

Sliced Jerusalem artichoke in a ham, cream and root vegetable base (Mrs.B)

Although there is a legume (Tetragonolobus purpurea) known as the asparagus pea, the term also refers to asparagus boiled and cut into pea-sized chunks (Mrs.B)

Asparagus 'peas' (asparagus cut to short lengths) and minced ham, mixed into a thick flour, egg and butter batter, steamed. Served with Melted Butter. Mrs.B rec...

Pale stock sauce with pulped asparagus, "if not a very good colour, use a little spinach green. This sauce should be rather sweet." (Mrs.B)

Boiled suet pudding with treacle, lemon, candied peel, cream and eggs (Mrs.B)

Batter of eggs beaten with a little flour and milk, seasoned and fried "then sprinkle upon the omelet some chopped herbs and a few shreds of onion; double the o...

Steamed egg-sponge pudding with dried fruit, apple and spices.

Fried or grilled thin bacon rashers with fried eggs. Often a breakfast dish, this is known from around the beginning of the 17th Century, but seems, until the 1...

Sweetened apple pulp with custard over, baked (Mrs.B)

Set sweet egg custard sprinkled with spice (nutmeg, etc) and baked. Often with slight flavourings of vanilla, bay, lemon, almond etc.

Large mushrooms, baked whole with a little butter and seasoning (Mrs.B, etc)

Boiled whole large white ("Spanish") onions, baked. (Mrs.B, etc)

Trimmed pears, whole or halved, baked with water (Mrs.B, etc)

Baked suet pudding with halved raisins (Mrs.B)

Milk with almond, almond, sugar, butter and eggs boiled with semolina. Poured into paste-lined dish and baked (Mrs.B)

Most usually meat trimmings with root vegetables, cooked in a pot in the oven (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B)

Tomatoes baked whole, or, in Mrs.B's receipt, cut and sprinkled with breadcrumbs.

Soup based on stock with pearl barley. Mrs.B adds parsley, onion and potatoes.

Suet sponge pudding with halved raisins mixed-in. Boiled for at least 4½hours (Mrs.B)

Stiff batter of flour, egg and milk with spices. Boiled in a cloth and served with Melted Butter and sugar (Hammond 1819, Mrs.B, etc)

Left-over cooked beef minced with bacon or ham, herbs and egg. Formed into small square cakes c½ins thick and fried in dripping (Acton 1845, Mrs.B)

Minced beef with breadcrumb and herbs, formed into balls or barrels and fried. Earlier descriptions suggest that rissoles were a garnish rather than a main dish...

Minced beef roll in pastry, baked (Mrs.B)

The clear liquid from beef which has been boiled until fallen, strained and skimmed of all fat.

Broth from beef and bacon with ale, pounded beet leaves, spinach, cabbage lettuce, mint, sorrel and chopped asparagus-tops (Mrs.B)

The definitive chutney of the Raj was was made with mangoes - almost unobtainable in England, and here replaced with sour apples.

Grated horseradish with mustard, sugar and vinegar, for hot or cold roast beef (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B).

Jam made with whole blackcurrants, seeds included (Mrs.B, etc)

Jam made with strained blackcurrant juice. Sometimes used as relish for mutton or game (Mrs.B, etc)

Beetroot is rarely served hot, but when it is it is boiled whole in its skin, then peeled and sliced for service (Mrs.B)

Bread pieces soaked in milk, eggs, butter, sugar, currants and nutmeg beaten-in. Boiled 1¼ hrs (Mrs.B). A form of Bread Pudding.

Boned calves feet stewed with parsley, bacon, butter lemon, onion, herbs and spices (Mrs.B, Moxon 1764)

Boiled suet pudding with currants mixed-in (Mrs.B)

Egg, flour and milk custard, cooked in a basin over boiling water (Raffald 1769, Mrs.B, etc)

Boiled fowl served with rice cooked in the stock (Mrs.B, etc)

Fowl stuffed with oysters, steamed and a sauce made from the liquor, thickened with yolks and cream. Pronounced 'excellent' by Mrs.B.

Basin lined with suet crust, filled with green gooseberries and sugar, boiled 2 to 3 hours. Known from Mrs.B and dozens of references throughout the 19th and ea...

For boiling, unlike roasting, parsnips are cut into chunks.

A salad is a mixture of vegetables, only by about the 18th Century did that necessarily mean raw vegetables.

Stale white bread pureed with hot milk, usually infused with onion, bay and cloves. Served hot with poultry.

Bread crusts boiled in water or stock with butter and seasonings (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc).

Buttered bread pieces, placed butter-to-butter, dipped in batter and fried. Served sprinkled with sugar (Mrs.B)

A rectangular form of cheese.

Gobbets of beef, carrots, turnips and celery in broth with thyme (Mrs.B)

Any conglomerate of chopped, shallow-fried, left-overs from a previous day's meat dinner. Now most usually a dish, typically of potato and cabbage, fried into a...

Scrambled eggs made with a very high proportion of butter (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B etc).

A set jelly made by boiling calf's feet in water or milk. The liquid is strained, then mixed with sugar and spices for a cold dessert or with pepper to make wha...

A much prized dish from earliest times to the beginning of the 20th Century, almost always served whole, boiled and trimmed, as a centrepiece to be carved at ta...

Calves' head meat in broth with herbs, spices and vegetables. Mrs.B, following Acton 1845, thickens the broth with rice flour.

Vinegar, strongly flavoured with, for instance, garlic, cayenne, soy and walnut ketchup. (Rundell 1807, Mrs.B)

Steamed sponge pudding made with melted butter and slightly flavoured with lemon (Mrs.B, etc)

Chopped capers in thickened butter. A sauce for fish or sheep meat (Soyer 1845, Mrs.B, etc)

Carrot pulp or shreds boiled with sugar and lemon, brandy added to preserve or apple or pectin to produce a set. Supposed by Mrs.B to be an imitation of apricot...

A form of Chilli Vinegar (Mrs.B)

A salad vinegar made by infusing crushed celery seeds in vinegar (Mrs.B) See also: Celery Vinegar

Celery soup is now usually a white creamed soup made with milk and onions, see: Cream of Celery Soup. But earlier versions are celery pieces in stock (Eaton 182...

Pureed chestnuts with stock, cream and seasonings. Repeatedly given as an acompaniment for poultry since the early 19th Century.

Very rich, very dark, fruit cake, commonly including dark sugars, dark dried fruit, with topping of marzipan and white icing, often decorated with holly, pine, ...

“A gastronomic paradox: the most English of dishes, made from the most un-English ingredients”

Red wine with flavourings, served cold. In 1398 John de Trevisa of Cornwall said that "Claret is made of wyne and of hony and swete spycery" and in 1559 Peter M...

Cod's head, boiled or baked whole, skinned and served with a rich sauce (Moxon 1764, Glasse 1747 Francatelli 1852, Mrs.B, etc).

Lemon custard poured over raisins and cake pieces in a mould, boiled 1 hour and served cold (Mrs.B)

Skinned and gutted eel, cut in short lengths and served in a parsley and cream sauce (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc)

Stew of Rabbit joints topped with bread slices soaked in the gravy and baked until top crisp. Mrs.B uses Rabbit joints with ham, hard-boiled eggs and forcemeat ...

Yeast-raised bread made from two spheres of dough placed one atop the other, the upper somewhat smaller than the lower, the two joined by forming an indent in t...

Mashed crab with butter, hot. A sauce for fish (Mrs.B)

Crayfish or crawfish is a general term for small crustaceans other than crabs, including the lobster and similar. They are plain boiled. Mrs.B suggests them as ...

A cream soup, often with a stock made from the pounded shells (Mrs.B, etc)

Light meal of pastry buns, almost always scones, split and each half topped, by the diner, with jam and thick cream. Usually accompanied by tea and light snacks...

A method of preparing fish by slashing them while alive and leaving an hour or so in water before being plain boiled.

Sliced cucumber with shallots, steeped in vinegar. "a very nice Addition to Salads" (Rundell 1807, Acton 1845, Mrs.B)

Egg batter with currants mixed-in, fried (Mrs.B, Eaton 1822, etc)

Receipts for the cooking of curry appear in England at least since 'The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy' by Hannah Glasse in 1747 (Glasse 1747). Beef curry ...

Usually white fish, or smoked white fish, in curried cream sauce (Mrs.B, etc)

Poultry pieces in a curry sauce with minced onions (Mrs.B, etc). Mentioned repeatedly in 19th Century literature.

In English practice, re-cooked chopped meat fried with minced onion, curry powder, often with fruit pieces (apples, apricots), moistened to form a sauce. Most t...

Open shortcrust base filled with set custard, usually topped with a slight sprinkle of nutmeg, baked.

Damson pulp boiled with sugar and set in shallow moulds (Mrs.B, etc)

Usually made with whole, stoned, damsons in sugar (Mrs.B)

Cooked apple slices with lemon and nutmeg rolled up in suet paste and boiled. Known from Mrs.B, who may have acquired it from Ballou's Magazine (v9 p591) of 185...

A skinless, long-cut, part-cured ham for cooking. Brined for 12 days, then aged 3 to 4 weeks. Sometimes offered cold smoked or cooked with cider and spices.

Curds with hot cream, sugar, cinnamon on top. Brandy, rum may be added (Eaton 1822, Walsh 1859, Mrs.B, etc). Compare with Damask Cream

Patties of chopped meat, suet and rice, rolled in egg and crumb, fried. Known from Mrs.B, Hartley 1954 and two 19th Century Cornish texts.

Duck joints in gravy, with green peas (Mrs.B, Soyer 1845, etc).

Very fine milled husk-free mustard flour, produced by a process developed c1720 by Mrs. Clements of Durham, and favoured by King George I. Although now lost, th...

Eggs formed as spheres. (Hammond 1819, Mrs.B, etc)

Thin pouring sauce of milk or cream, egg yolks and sugar heated until thick, but neither boiled nor allowed to set (Soyer 1845, Mrs.B, etc). While the French im...

Diced hard-boiled egg in melted butter sauce. A sauce for fish and light meats (Soyer 1845, Francatelli 1852, Mrs.B, etc)

Whole eggs beaten into hot stock or water. Mrs.B adds mace, Glasse 1747 adds a large proportion of butter.

A made-wine of elder berries and sugar, known at least since the early 1700's. Family Guide 1747 makes it with the addition of dried vine fruits and especially ...

Open pastry case containing successive layers of buttered boiled rice and jam. Baked (Mrs.B). An apple dish of the same name is known in Scotland.

Unlike the French version, English onion is now almost always a white soup. It has the onions less toasted, or not at all, in a creamed base (Mrs.B, etc)

Thinly-sliced cucumber, onion and apple in a pickle of salt, cayenne, soy, sherry and vinegar. Known from the 'Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine' of the 1840's a...

Walnut and mushroom ketchup, soy, port wine, white pepper, shallots, cayenne and cloves in vinegar. A sauce for steaks etc (Acton 1845, Mrs.B)

Pigeon joints with rump-steak and ham under a puff crust (Mrs.B, whose stepfather was clerk to Epsom Racecourse)

Buttered mould filled with layers of ratafia biscuits, custard of breadcrumbs, fat, sugar, peel, rum, eggs and cream, and sponge cake. Baked, turned out, and se...

Large meatballs of breadcrumbs or rusk with herbs and minced meat and offal (most traditionally pork heart and liver), baked close together so that, on rising, ...

Hard boiled yolks beaten with orange-water, sugar and butter, "force it through a fine strainer full of little holes onto a plate" (Glasse 1747, Walsh 1859, Mrs...

Chopped fennel in thickened butter, a sauce for oily fish such as mackerel (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, Walsh 1859)

Egg suet sponge with chopped figs mixed-in. Steamed (Walsh 1859, Mrs.B, etc)

Layers of flaked fish, oysters and breadcrumb under a paste or breadcrumb topping, baked (Mrs.B)

Flaked fish with mashed potato, sometimes bound with egg, formed into patties, rolled in crumb and fried.

Assorted fish pieces, now almost invariably in a cream sauce, under a topping of mashed potato, baked. Ocasionally with a paste crust (Francatelli 1852, Mrs.B, ...

Cooked fish with cream and seasonings put into a small dish or scallop-shell. Butter and breadcrumbs over, grilled (Mrs.B)

The European flounder is a flatfish, Platichthys flesus

Open puff pastry case filled with custard of milk, sugar, butter, ground rice, infused with bay. Sprinkled with currants and baked.

Thins strips of beef dredged in flour, fried in butter then stewed in gravy (Mrs.B)

Bread pieces cut into decorative shapes, fried (Walsh 1859, Mrs.B, etc)

Fried bread-crumbs, sometimes sprinkled with herbs, as an accompaniment to game and roast fowl (Soyer 1845, Walsh 1859, Mrs.B, etc)

Fried in butter, as an accompaniment for mutton or dark meats (Moxon 1764, Mrs.B, etc)

Whole, almost always hen's, eggs poured gently into shallow hot fat and cooked by splashing fat over. Not turned or stirred.

White fish fillet, crumbed, and fried in fat (Mrs.B, etc)

Ox-feet (Cow-Heel pieces) rolled in egg and seasoned crumb. Fried in butter (Mrs.B)

Oysters, boiled then fried in butter with strong flavourings and parsley. Served with fried potatoes and toast sippets (Mrs.B)

Stewed oyster meat fried in batter of flour, breadcrumb and mace (Bradley 1728, Mrs.B, etc).

Parsley, quickly deep-fried. A very commonplace accompaniment in cookbooks of the 18th &19th Centuries. (Eaton 1822, Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc)

Thinly sliced salt beef, fried. Served with potatoes and pickle (Mrs.B)

Peeled vegetable marrow pieces, in egg and crumb, fried.

Fruit pieces served in sweet syrup. The earlier term was 'compost'

A fruit pasty. Rectangular or semi-circular pasty, usually of puff paste, well-filled with fruit (apple, cherry, etc) puree Edges knife-sealed, not crimped, wel...

Goose or duck giblets, boiled (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc)

Slightly stewed sliced apple garnished with sliced ginger in whiskey (Mrs.B)

Cream custard with finely-sliced ginger (Mrs.B, etc)

A steamed sponge pudding flavoured with ginger (Mrs.B, etc)

Very sweet, rich wine, most traditionally made from raisins, flavoured with ginger. Usually fortified - Mrs.B recommends 1 pint of brandy to each 9-gallon batch...

Nowadays gingerbread is most usually a form of biscuit made with a proportion of oats, but many makers follow the older form of a softer, more bread-like, produ...

Also: Single Gloucester, Double Gloucester, Thin Gloucester, Thick Gloucester

Steamed pudding of breadcrumbs, egg, sugar and suet with marmalade (Mrs.B). Known at least since the 1870's, when it appears in a puzzlingly large number of adv...

A 'Made-Wine' from gooseberries. (Moxon 1764, Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc) Known at least since Bradley 1728, "one of the richest and strongest Wines made in England...

A pouring sauce made from the fat and juices which exude from meat in cooking, thickened slightly if need be, as a dressing for the meat. That the chief sauce i...

A 'Green-Goose' is a young, unhung, goose. Usually cooked (boiler or roasted etc) and served with a sharp, green flavour. Mrs.B uses gooseberry and watercress, ...

Sorrel juice with wine, berries, butter, sugar. A sauce for goose or duck. (Eaton 1822, etc)

Original Receipt from Mrs.B

Custard of ground rice with sugar, eggs, lemon, almond, bay. Boiled or baked, served with stewed fruit or marmalade (Mrs.B, etc)

Breadcumb-and-suet pudding with dried fruit and treacle. Known at least since J. Chadwick's 'Home Cookery' of 1853.

Fried ham slices with poached eggs. A breakfast dish (Mrs.B, etc)

Commonly includes a small admixture of a contrasting flavour such as brown sugar, anchovy, wine or vinegar (Moxon 1764, Soyer 1845, Mrs.B)

An English Piquant Sauce sauce.

General term for a stew or fricassee of re-heated small meat pieces with vegetables (Mrs.B, etc)

A number of quickly-made dished have been called 'hasty pudding', most usually simply flour, oats, wheat, breadcrumbs or barley boiled in water, but occasionall...

A mixture of ingredients, commonly diced sheep meat with carrot, lettuce (or cabbage) and other vegetables, cooked so as the ingredients fall and produce a high...

A beef round dry pickled in saltpetre [E252], sugar and spices, then baked (Mrs.B, White 1932)

Steamed suet pudding with dried fruit, peel, brandy, lemon and a very sharp, strong spice flavouring. Moxon 1764 uses a whole half-nutmeg, Rundell 1807 uses 'Ja...

Sweetened cream or an oil-water emulsion, congealed by being agitated while chilled to freezing point. Sometimes flavoured, but almost always served very plain,...

Rice boiled in milk until fallen, chilled (Mrs.B, etc)

Jugged simply means 'enclosed', as in 'jug' for 'prison'. Jugged hare is any hare cooked in a closed vessel, rather than roasted open to the fire. The earliest ...

The Kentish Plover, or Grey Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus), is a small wading bird. They were once highly prized as food, though Mrs.B thought them fit for no...

A raising mixture made from hops, water, flour and yeast applied to a mashed-potato-and-flour bread dough. Known only from Mrs.B, and unknown from local enquiri...

Using now boiled leg of lamb, first known in Mrs.B.

Hot ale beaten to a froth with whole eggs and sweet spices, poured over hot apple pieces.

Pie-dish lined with sliced beef with bacon, filled with stuffed larks, stock.

Juice pressed from unripe salted walnuts, with pounded shallots, soy, cayenne and garlic in vinegar and Port. A sauce for; "every description of Fish, Game, Wil...

This may be either a fully creamed soup, or with some of the the leeks and potato remaining in substantial chunks.

Breadcrumbs with suet, sugar, egg and lemon (rind and juice), boiled (Rundell 1807, Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc).

Mincemeat (qv) made with a large proportion of chopped whole lemon. Mrs.B uses currants, suet, sugar, candied lemon peel, citron, apple and lemon.

Now most usually a steamed suet sponge pudding made with citrus zest, but in earlier versions by the definitive Eliza Acton or Isabella Beeton, a form of tart f...

Strips of liver sauteed with a bacon pieces and coarsely chopped onion, gravied and served with mashed potato.

Vinegar containing hot chillies, a London speciality served with Pie and Mash or Eels, known at least since the late 18Cent.

General term for soda-raised fruit slab cakes. Mrs.B adds caraway, currants and candied peel.

Boiled macaroni in sweet custard, nutmeg on top, baked (Walsh 1859, Mrs.B, etc)

Thick cookies made from stiffly beaten egg white with sugar and either ground almonds or desiccated coconut, dropped into masses onto a sheet and baked until cr...

Grilled fish with a gooseberry puree.

Plain or puff pastry base, covered with jam and then with lemon custard thickened with breadcrumbs, baked (Mrs.B, Walsh 1859, etc)

Shallow blind-baked shortcrust base covered in red (usually raspberry) jam and a thick layer of set custard. Topped with coconut flakes. The receipt given by Mr...

Bread soaked in milk, beaten with eggs, brandy, suet, flour, currants, nutmeg and cream, dished and baked (Mrs.B, etc)

Puff pastry base coated in jam (or candied fruit) and filled-up with rich 'Marlborough' custard made with added butter and sharp shredded fruit such as lemon or...

Beef bones sawn to size and either roasted or, according to Mrs.B, their ends sealed with paste and boiled, the paste removed before serving whole and upright f...

Lemon-flavoured suet-and-breadcrumb pudding, served with lemon sauce (Mrs.B, etc)

Milk boiled with salt, cinnamon, sugar, poured over bread sops (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc).

Finely chopped mint leaves in sweetened vinegar. Served with lamb.

Slices of left-over pudding cooked with custard. A form of Bread Pudding.

Black pepper, allspice, salt, horseradish, pickled shallots all pounded in liquor of mushroom ketchup or walnut pickle.

Hot wine with spices.

Any soup made hot with curry spices. (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc.)

Savoury white sauce with chopped mushrooms (Mrs.B, etc)

Meat stewed and skimmed of fat. Chunks in broth with root vegetables and onion (Mrs.B, etc)

Roast sheep-meat usually with chopped or pureed celery (Moxon 1764, Mrs.B, etc)

There are repeated references to nasturtium leaves and buds in salads and pickles from mediaeval times up to Mrs.B, while Glasse 1747 suggests the flowers as a ...

Equal parts of fortified rich wine (usually Port, but also Sherry or Madeira) and boiling water with sugar, lemon, vanilla and nutmeg.

Image: Unknown

Beef or tongue pickled in "1 gallon of soft water, 3 lbs. of coarse salt, 6 oz. of coarse brown sugar,½oz. of saltpetre" (Mrs.B)

A strong brandy-based citrus fruit punch (Rundell 1807, Eaton 1822, Farley 1811, Mrs.B. etc).

Steamed suet pudding with dried fruit, and, in the original receipt, potato and carrot. The word 'omnibus' means 'for everyone' and is more commonly applied to ...

Gravy with orange, a sauce for goose and game (Acton 1845, Kitchiner 1845, Mrs.B).

Usually boiled and sliced (Soyer 1845)

Oxtails, boiled until well fallen, skimmed free of fat, with onion and vegetables. Pureed (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc). This is quite unlike the Indonesian or Germa...

Pancakes of pudding batter, lightly cooked on both sides, typically 8" diameter by 1/8" thick. Served hot rolled-up with sugar (or honey) and lemon on 'Pancake ...

Minced apple eggs, breadcrumbs, sugar, currants, nutmeg, lemon and brandy, boiled in a buttered mould (Mrs.B, etc)

Parsnips boiled in stock, creamed (Kitchiner 1845, Mrs.B, etc)

Pease pudding (pease pottage or pease porridge or peasen) is a near-solid cooked mix of boiled split peas, usually including yellow or Carlin peas, water, salt ...

Also: Old English: peopor, pipor, pipur, piper,

Now almost always thinly sliced discs of boiled red beetroot in slightly sweetened and spiced vinegar.

Whole, shelled, hard-boiled eggs preserved in clear vinegar.

Whole unripe figs stewed in vinegar with salt and spices (Mrs.B, etc)

Nasturtium buds, heavily salted, in vinegar. An alternative to, and almost indistinguishable from, capers.

Rounds of pineapple c ¼ins thick, dipped in batter and fried. Mrs.B first soaks the fruit in brandy or liqueur.

The Plover family, which includes lapwings, are too tiny to cook in any conventional poultry manner. Mrs.B recommended roasting them plucked, but undrawn, and s...

Boiled sponge pudding made with dark fruit. The name appears to derive from the shape of the pudding, rather than its contents as very few receipts actually con...

The outer rind of a pork joint, roasted very hot so as to crisp, and served with the joint. When cut into gobbets and served separate from the joint, it is Pork...

Mashed potato (probably sweet potato in earlier receipts) with sugar, spices, etc. Baked and served as a dish by themselves or as accompaniment to meats. (Bradl...

A 19th Century dish of meat cooked below and potato mash above in a distinctive baking and service dish incorporating a trivet to separate the two. Known from s...

Anchovies pounded with strong spices, eg. mace and cayenne, and butter (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc)

The English tradition of potted fish is of a cooked - not simply pickled or smoked - fish with sweet spices, always including mace. There is also a distinct New...

Prawns are plain boiled and eaten as a salad component or in sandwiches, or occasionally as a garnish to fish or meat dishes. They have little other use in Engl...

Slightly sweetened clear veal stock with small turnip balls served poured over bread discs.

Now, typically, whole rabbit joints, with carrots and onions.

The leading Piquant Sauce of the Victorian era. Originally a dissolved-fish sauce, but later made with other materials. Cocks's Reading Sauce seems to have been...

Oily white fish with a shellfish-like taste. Red mullet is grilled or fried, rarely ever plain boiled. The liver is sometimes considered a delicacy.

A cream soup of bone stock from game with game meat, carrot, onion, celery, turnip, egg yolks (Mrs.B)

A made-wine with sugar, formerly recommended as a mild laxative (Mrs.B, etc)

A meal necessarily consisting of slices of roast beef, gravy, roast potatoes and at least two other vegetables (commonly carrots, roast parsnips, peas or cut ca...

Boiled griskin (the lean part of the loin of a bacon pig), baked.

Pork joints are most traditionally roasted with the, scored, skin on, merely rubbed with salt (Francatelli 1852, etc)

Image: Gainsborough Old Hall

Baked custard with currants and brandy.

A creamy, cold, yellow condiment sauce, based on pureed cooked egg in a cream with vinegar and spices. Similar in appearance to mayonnaise, but with a more pron...

The slim, sweet, root of Tragopogon porrifolius, also known as the oyster plant. It appears, peeled and boiled, as a vegetable in many 18th and 19th Century coo...

A finger-food-sized sausage, or a roll of sausage-meat, enveloped in a cover of, usually flaky, flour paste, with the ends exposed, baked. In one early receipt ...

Now an individual whole hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, covered in breadcrumb and deep-fried or baked. Now served universally as a snack item, they wer...

Scrap' is the small pieces of meat left after the fat of a pig has been melted down to lard and 'Scrap cakes' are known from several sources. Mrs.B mixes her sc...

A cabbage-like plant, native to sea coasts but easily grown inland. The leaves are used like cabbage and the young shoots like asparagus.

A mixture of ale and ginger beer. Known since the late 18th Century. See also: Shandy

Small pieces of toasted or fried bread, usually served in soup or broth, or with meat, or used for dipping into gravy, etc. Known from the 13th Century up to Mr...

The wild celery, as a flavouring herb, known from several receipts (Digby 1669, Mrs.B, etc), now very rare.

A small, oily, salmon-like, estuary fish (Osmerus eperlanus) which was once of huge commercial importance, but which has, over the last two centuries, gone into...

Individual baked sponge puddings flavoured with grated lemon-rind, bitter almonds, or essence of vanilla, served with custard or wine sauce over (Mrs.B)

Thick suet paste strewn with chopped figs, rolled-up and boiled (Mrs.B). For an alternative, see Fig Pudding

Double-crust soft suet pastry case filled with beef mince or chunks with kidney pieces in gravy, steamed. Known only since Mrs.B, this is, in part, a more recen...

Sliced onion and cucumber in white sauce well flavoured with pepper or cayenne, "This is a favourite dish with lamb or mutton chops, rump-steaks, &c." (Mrs....

Shredded lettuce leaves, stewed. Mrs.B says that it may be; "sent to table in a good brown gravy flavoured with lemon-juice."

The classic English jam. Whole strawberries boiled with sugar to a set. Known at least since Raffald 1769. Mrs.B adds red-currant juice.

Biscuits of flour, treacle, sugar and butter flavoured with ample ground ginger, allspice, coriander seed and, optionally, cayenne. Especially associated with t...

Plain boiled flour-and water dumplings, of unknown speciality (Mrs.B)

The froth from very fresh warm milk, or cream, whisked with an acid flavouring such as cider, wine or fruit juice so that it curdles. Reputedly most traditional...

Broth of tapioca boiled in stock (Francatelli 1852, Mrs.B, etc)

Mandarin, lemon, Seville orange, sugar, pineapple, green tea, rum, brandy, arrack and champagne, iced (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc)

Now usually a cutting cake made with a high proportion of alcohol (Acton 1845, Walsh 1859, etc)

Sponge cake soaked in alcohol, in various forms. (Mrs.B, etc). The same name is used in the Southern USA for a sherry trifle.

A very thin piece of cold toast between 2 slices of thin bread-and-butter in the form of a sandwich, pepper and salt to taste (Mrs.B). "This sandwich may be var...

"Cut from a nice fat Cheshire, or any good rich cheese, some slices about½inch thick, and place them between some slices of brown bread-and-butter, like sandwic...

Tomato pulp, seasoned and slightly reduced.

Chilled sweet dish of at least three layers, often cake soaked in sweet wine, a layer of set custard and a decorated cream topping. Other layers, such as jam, f...

Any soup made of the meat, and especially the fat, of the green turtle, long considered a great delicacy in England. Usually pieces of stewed meat and fat in a ...

Chunks of salted veal and ham, slightly spiced, in a hot-water crust. Once immensely popular, recent concerns about the ethics of veal frequently convert this i...

The Vegetable Marrow is any of several kinds of squash or gourd, the fruits of Cucurbita pepo. In English practice the flowers are not eaten, though these are a...

Often bulked-up with lamb (Mrs.B) or other game.

Boiled suet pudding with currants, raisins, soft sugar and ginger.

Cake mixture of sugar, egg, ground rice, wheatflour, butter with currants and candied peel, made as small buns (Mrs.B). When produced commercially they are comm...

Soft circular sponge cake of white wheatflour, butter, sugar and whole egg. Split and filled with red jam and cream or creamed butter/sugar/vanilla. Dusted with...

Rice, eggs, milk, butter, beef marrow, currants, brandy, lemon and spices, stewed and filled into paste-lined dish. Baked (Mrs.B)

Alternate layers of salted lean and fat pork in raised hot-water pastry (Mrs.B)

Whole river fish (perch etc) stewed with herbs, especially parsley leaves and root, onion and served in the stewing water (Bradley 1728, Mrs.B, etc).

Cream whipped with rich flavourings.

Any white soup. Mrs.B has it with cream, almonds, lemon and mace and veal or poultry in veal stock.

18th and 19th Century name for broad beans. Usually served with butter and parsley (Mrs.B).

This is the 'Pudding Sauce' of 18th and 19th Century cookery.

Flour, egg and milk batter cooked in a tray of very hot meat fat, so that the edges rise very high and become crisp. Known by this name only since Glasse 1747. ...