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A little Welsh cooking, for every day
Welsh TableGood food, simply made

The recipe book

All Welsh recipes

Twelve dishes from the Welsh table, each with clear quantities, timings for fan, conventional and gas ovens, and a lighter or plant-led version to try.

The soup pot

Soups & stews

Slow pots and smooth bowls, the backbone of a Welsh kitchen.

A bowl of homemade lamb cawl with leeks, potatoes and carrots on a wooden kitchen table

The soup pot · Serves 4

Lamb & leek cawl

Tender Welsh lamb, sweet leeks and chunky roots in a clear, savoury broth. Set out some bread and a wedge of Caerphilly, and let everyone help themselves.

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A bowl of pale creamy leek and potato soup topped with leek slices and black pepper, with a slice of bread

The soup pot · Serves 4

Leek & potato soup

The leek has been a symbol of Wales for centuries, and there are few better ways to cook it than this. Soft, sweet leeks and floury potatoes simmered in stock and blended until smooth: a simple soup that tastes far richer than its ingredients suggest.

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Mains & savoury

Suppers, roasts & cheese

From the grill, the frying pan and the Sunday oven.

Two thick slices of toast topped with bubbling, golden grilled cheese sauce on a plate beside a small pot of mustard

Under the grill · Lunch for 2 to 4

Welsh rarebit

A rarebit is cheese on toast with ambition. Instead of slices of cheese, the toast is spread with a thick, savoury sauce of cheese, ale and mustard, then grilled until it puffs, bubbles and turns golden in patches.

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Six golden breadcrumbed Glamorgan sausages on a plate with a tomato salad

From the frying pan · Makes 8

Glamorgan sausages

There is no meat in a Glamorgan sausage, and there never has been. These crisp, golden fingers are made from crumbly cheese, soft leeks and fresh breadcrumbs, seasoned with mustard and herbs, then fried until the outside crackles.

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Oval meatballs in brown onion gravy with mushy green peas in an earthenware dish

From the oven · Serves 4

Faggots & peas

Faggots are generous savoury meatballs, traditionally made with pork and liver, seasoned with sage and onion and baked in a rich gravy.

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A roast leg of lamb partly carved into pink slices on a wooden board with roast potatoes and rosemary

The Sunday table · Serves 6

Roast Welsh lamb

A roast leg of lamb, studded with garlic and rosemary and carved at the table, is the centrepiece of many Welsh Sunday lunches.

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A homemade leek and crumbly white cheese tart in a metal tart tin with one slice cut out

From the oven · Serves 6

Caerphilly & leek tart

Two of the best things in a Welsh kitchen, leeks and Caerphilly, baked together in a crisp pastry case. The leeks go in soft and sweet, the cheese melts in pockets through a gently set custard, and the tart is just as good cold the next day.

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Breakfast & brunch

From the morning pan

Seaweed from the coast, pancakes from the griddle.

Four dark laverbread and oat cakes on a plate with crisp bacon and cockles, a cast-iron pan beside them on a kitchen table

A taste of the coast · Breakfast

Laverbread cakes

Dark, savoury and crisp at the edges, laverbread cakes are what happens when a spoonful of cooked seaweed meets a handful of oats and a hot pan.

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A stack of small golden Welsh pancakes with melting butter and a sprinkling of sugar on a plate

Griddle & stack · Makes about 16

Crempog

Crempog are small, thick Welsh pancakes made with buttermilk, cooked on a griddle and piled into a buttered stack.

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Bakes & griddle cakes

From the cake tin

Fruit, spice and butter: the tea-time side of the book.

Golden Welsh cakes with currants cooling on a wire rack

Bakes & griddle cakes · Tea-time

Welsh cakes

Somewhere between a scone, a biscuit and a pancake, Welsh cakes are cooked on a flat griddle rather than in the oven.

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A buttered slice of fruit-filled bara brith on a wooden bread board

From the oven · A loaf to slice

Bara brith

The name means "speckled bread", and every slice is dotted with plump fruit that has spent the night soaking in strong tea.

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A flat golden fruit cake dusted with sugar on an old plate with one slice cut out

Bakes & griddle cakes · A cake for the tin

Teisen lap

Teisen lap means "moist cake" or "plate cake" in Welsh. It is a soft, shallow fruit cake, quick to mix and quick to bake, that was traditionally made to pack into lunch boxes for long working days.

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