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Sunday roast consisting of roast beef, mashed potatoes, other vegetables and mini Yorkshire puddings

The Sunday roast is a traditional British main meal served on Sundays (usually in the early afternoon for lunch), consisting of roasted meat, roast potato together with accompaniments, such as Yorkshire pudding, stuffing, vegetables and gravy.

It is popular throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. Other names for this meal are Sunday dinner, Sunday lunch, Sunday tea, Roast dinner, and Sunday joint, joint being a word that specifically refers to the joint of meat. It is believed this tradition arose because bakers could not bake bread on a Sunday, so their ovens would be used to roast meat. The meal is often comparable to a less grand version of a traditional Christmas dinner in these cultures.

Origin

Sunday Roast dates back to when the squire would treat his serfs to a meal of roast oxen every Sunday to reward them for the week's work.^[1]

Technically, the term Sunday Dinner, does not mean necessarily that an actual roast has to take place. Such things as sausages, bacon and barbecued meat can be incorporated into a Sunday dinner. With the only rule being that the dinner in question is held on the day of Sunday.

Typical elements

Meat

Typical meats used for a Sunday roast are beef, chicken, lamb or pork, although seasonally duck, goose, gammon, turkey or (rarely) other game birds may be used^[2].

There are vegetarian alternatives such as a Nut roast and recently other proteins such as Quorn have also become available.

Vegetables

Sunday roasts can be served with a range of boiled and roasted vegetables. The vegetables served vary seasonally and regionally, but will usually include roast potatoes, roasted in meat dripping or (more recently, due to the unhealthy nature of saturated fats) vegetable oil, and also gravy made from juices released by the roasting meat, perhaps supplemented by one or more stock cubes, thickened with some sort of roux, or corn flour. The potatoes can be cooked around the meat itself, absorbing the juices and fat directly.

Other vegetable dishes served with roast dinner can include mashed swede or turnip, roast parsnip, boiled or steamed cabbage, broccoli, green beans and boiled carrots and peas. It is also not uncommon for leftover prepared vegetable dishes — such as cauliflower cheese and stewed red cabbage — to be served alongside the more usual assortment of plainly-cooked seasonal vegetables.

Accompaniments

Common traditional accompaniments include:

• beef — Yorkshire pudding, Suet pudding; English mustard, or horseradish sauce.
• pork — crackling and sage-and-onion stuffing; apple sauce or English mustard.
• lamb — mint sauce or redcurrant jelly.
• chicken — pigs in blankets, sausages or sausage meat, stuffing, bread sauce, cranberry sauce or redcurrant jelly^[3].

Preparation

It takes a considerable amount of domestic cooking skill, flair and experience to have all the elements, with their separate cooking and preparation methods and timings, ready together to serve at their best, especially to a large gathering.

Left-over food from the Sunday roast has traditionally formed the basis of meals served on other days of the week. For example, meats might be used as sandwich fillings, lamb might be used in the filling for a shepherd's pie, and vegetables might form the basis for bubble and squeak.

Sunday roast in pubs and restaurants

In the United Kingdom, many pubs that serve food have a special "Sunday menu" that features a Sunday roast, usually with a variety of meats to choose from and often a vegetarian option such as a Nut roast. This is often cheaper than the normal menu, which may or may not also be available on Sundays.

See also

Food portal

• Carvery
• Pub grub

References

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

English

Noun

Sunday roast (plural Sunday roasts)

1. (British) A roast dinner, eaten on a Sunday, consisting of roast meat and other trimmings.