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2025-05-26: Polish friends, and English food

This weekend in the UK is a bank holiday. That means it's a long weekend and

most people will typically get the Monday off. Thankfully, I'm one of the

lucky ones which do!

We'd therefore arranged to host some friends for the weekend -- staying,

Saturday night to Sunday.

It had been a while since we saw them, so my wife and I were thinking about

what we were going to do. Since they were only staying a short while we

didn't decide to go out any where, and given how crappy the British weather

has been recently (plenty of rain), we just stayed in. Thankfully, that was

the correct decision to make as it did rain for some of the weekend!

I'd prepared a menu of classic British food which I had growing up as a child,

but I was also sure neither of our friends had tried. As it happens, that was

true.

The Menu

So what did we have? Well, in no particular order...

Bubble and Squeak

This is a dish typically made from leftover vegetables of, say, a roast dinner

from the day before. It's typically made from cabbage and boiled potatoes

which are then mashed together and fried. But really, any vegetables will do.

For the ones I prepared, I did just that -- used cabbage and potatoes and

added English and wholegrain mustard, shaped them into patties (like a burger)

and fried them.

[Photo of bubble and squeak]

The reason they're called `bubble and squeak` is because of the sound they

make as they're cooking in the frying pan.

Toad in the Hole

Ah, yes -- you did read that correctly. Toad in the hole is so called

because... well, no one actually knows. This is a dish consisting of sausages

cooked inside of Yorkshire pudding batter.

Yorkshire pudding batter is made from eggs, flour and milk.

[Photo of toad in the hole]

Liver and Bacon

This is just as it says -- chopped up lambs liver, cooked with bacon and

onions.

Corned Beef Hash

This is a mixture of mashed potatoes and corned beef. Corned beef refers to

the preparation of the beef, whereby it is salt-cured and packed tightly.

[HTTP: link to Wikipedia]

It's then cooked and shaped in the same way as the bubble and squeak.

Jam Roly Poly

For pudding, we had Jam Roly Poly. This is a suet-based pudding filled with

jam (which in this case was raspberry, although any flavour will do).

Suet is a rolled-fat, perhaps similar to lard.

In this case, the suet is combined with self-raising flour and combined with

milk to make a dough, which is the rolled out, and jam added. It's the rolled

and cooked.

[Photo of cooked jam roly poly]

[Photo of sliced jam roly poly]

Bread and Butter Pudding

This is a dish consisting of bread, buttered, and then marmalade (orange jam)

put on it, and layered into a dish, with dried fruit. A custard of milk and

eggs, with spices is made, and poured over the bread so the custard soaks into

it.

As it cooks in the oven, the top crisps up.

[Photo of bread and butter pudding]

Conclusion

Everyone had a lovely time!