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Bangers and Mash

British pub comfort food in its truest form, the dish you order when the weather is grim and you want something to push the day's mood around. You slow-pan-fry good sausages so the skins blister and the fat renders properly, build a soft butter-and-milk mash that tastes of potato rather than dairy, and ladle over a dark onion gravy stiffened with mustard and a few thyme leaves. The onions need long, low cooking until they're collapsed and almost jammy; rushing them is the only way to ruin the dish. Eaten on a winter Tuesday with a pint of bitter or a glass of red, the mash mountain pushed slightly to one side so the gravy can pool around it.

British 45 minutes Serves4

Beef and Guinness Stew

Chuck steak in big chunks, dredged in seasoned flour and browned in batches in a heavy pot until properly dark. Onions cooked low and slow in the same pot to draw out their sugar. The beef returned, a bottle of Guinness poured over with stock and a spoon of treacle, brought to a simmer and tucked into a low oven for two hours. The last half-hour gets carrots, potatoes and a handful of pearl barley to thicken the broth. Finished with parsley and a chunk of soda bread for mopping.

Irish 2 hours 50 minutes Serves6

Boxty

Half the potatoes are boiled and mashed; the other half are grated raw and squeezed dry. Both fold together with flour, milk and an egg into a thick batter. Spoonfuls fry in butter until deep golden on both sides.

Irish 35 minutes Serves8

Bread and Butter Pudding

Slices of buttered bread layer in a baking dish with raisins and lemon zest. A custard of egg yolks, milk, cream, sugar and vanilla pours over and soaks in. Demerara sugar scatters on top for the crunch. Baked in a water bath until just set; the top crisps to dark gold.

Desserts 1 hour 20 minutes Serves6-8

Buttered Red Cabbage

Onion is softened in butter; red cabbage joins along with sliced apple, brown sugar, red wine vinegar, a touch of red wine, cinnamon and cloves. Slow-cooked covered for an hour until the cabbage is silky and the liquid has reduced into a glossy glaze.

Sides 1 hour 30 minutes Serves6-8

Buttery Mashed Potatoes

Maris Piper potatoes peel and chunk, boil in well-salted water until very tender, drain, return to the hot pan to steam off any moisture. Pass through a ricer or food mill into a clean pan. Cold butter cubes whisk in first; warm milk loosens to the right consistency; salt to taste.

Sides 30 minutes Serves4-6

Champ

Spring onions infuse hot milk for 10 minutes off the heat. Floury potatoes boil and dry; everything mashes together with a generous amount of butter. The classic finish: a hollow scooped out of the centre of the mound on each plate, filled with melting butter.

Irish 30 minutes Serves4

Colcannon

Floury potatoes boil; cabbage or kale wilts in butter with spring onions; the lot is mashed with hot milk and lots of butter. The cabbage softens but keeps a little texture; the mash should be smooth, with green flecks throughout.

Irish 35 minutes Serves4

Cottage Pie

The textbook British family dinner, the dish that turns up on every primary-school menu and most weeknight tables. You brown beef mince with onion, carrot and celery, then simmer it down with stock, a spoon of tomato purée, a slosh of red wine and a generous splash of Worcestershire into a thick savoury gravy. Top with cheddar mash piled rough so the peaks catch and crisp in the oven, and bake until the surface is deep gold and the gravy bubbles around the edges. Forgiving, freezer-friendly, exactly as good on Wednesday from leftovers as on Sunday from the oven. A green vegetable and a spoon of brown sauce on the plate, a bowl of trifle waiting in the fridge for after.

British 1 hour 25 minutes Serves4-6

Irish Soda Bread

Wholemeal and white flour mixed dry with bicarbonate of soda and salt. Cold buttermilk poured in, stirred briefly with a wooden spoon and then gathered by hand into a rough ball. Patted onto a tray, scored with a deep cross to let it open in the oven, baked hot until the bottom thumps hollow. The cross is partly practical (helping the bread rise evenly), partly a blessing - "letting the fairies out", as the saying goes.

Sides 50 minutes Serves8

Irish Stew

Irish stew is the epitome of rustic, peasant cooking elevated to comfort food status. Middle neck of lamb simmers gently with potatoes, onions, carrots, and cabbage in a light broth, with the potatoes gradually breaking down to thicken the sauce naturally. The result is a one-pot wonder that's wholesome, deeply flavorful, and warming, the kind of dish that feeds both body and soul on cold days.

Irish 56 minutes Serves4

Lancashire Hotpot

The defining dish of the north-west of England, the one-pot supper invented to feed mill workers in the cotton towns of Lancashire from a single tough cut of lamb and a layer of potatoes. You layer lamb shoulder or middle-neck chunks with onions and stock in a deep dish, top with overlapping slices of waxy potatoes that protect the meat below while crisping golden above, and put the whole thing into a low oven for hours. Time and gentle heat do the rest: the lamb tenderises, the onions melt down into the gravy, the potato top crisps into a thatched roof of pale brown discs. Eaten with pickled red cabbage on the side, exactly as it would have been on a Pendle table a hundred years ago.

British 2 hours 25 minutes Serves4

Perfect Roast Potatoes

Maris Piper potatoes peel and chunk, parboil in well-salted water until just past the point of holding together, drain, shake aggressively in the colander to fluff up the surface. They go into smoking hot fat in a roasting tin, get turned a few times, and emerge with a crust that holds against gravy.

Sides 1 hour 30 minutes Serves6

Shepherd's Pie

The lamb cousin of cottage pie, and the original of the two (cottage pie came later as a beef variant when lamb was harder to find). You brown lamb mince with onion, carrot and celery, then simmer with stock, tomato purée, Worcestershire and rosemary until the gravy is thick enough to hold a spoon upright. Top with garlic-butter mash piled in rough peaks that catch and crisp in the oven, and bake until the surface is deep gold. The lamb gives it a heavier, more savoury character than cottage pie's beef. That's what marks it as shepherd's rather than cottage. Eaten with peas, a spoonful of mint sauce on the side if you're being traditional, and a glass of bitter or a strong red.