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A British home cookbook

Old Man Alfie’s British Cookbook

115 proper recipes from a lifetime of British cooking

115 recipes for the food Britain actually eats: the full English, the Sunday roast, pies with a proper lid, fish and chips, and puddings drowned in custard. Every one has a full-page photograph, and every quantity is given in metric and American measures. It’s a 354-page PDF that reads on a phone, a tablet or a computer.

Get the cookbook · Regular price $56 $32 See what’s inside
354Pages
115Recipes
115Full-page photos
12Sections
Cover of Old Man Alfie's British Cookbook
“’Till it looks right’ is no use to anybody who wasn’t stood at the stove to see what right looked like.”
From the introduction

I · Why British food goes wrong

It’s never the recipe. It’s the step nobody mentions.

Alfie’s mum never measured anything. She cooked by feel, and the things she knew by feel are the things most recipes leave out. This book writes them down.

The heat

Yorkshires that won’t rise. Roast potatoes that won’t crisp.

Both come down to fat that isn’t hot enough when the food goes in. The book tells you how hot, what it looks like when it’s there, and when to keep the oven door shut.

The pastry

A pie lid that’s pale and soggy underneath.

A warm filling melts the pastry before the oven can set it. Cold filling, cold pastry, hot oven: every pie in the book is written around that one rule.

The patience

Tough stew. Heavy dumplings. Grey mince.

Cheap cuts need time, dumplings need the lid left alone, and mince needs a hot pan. Every recipe says what to wait for, not only how long.

II · What you get for $32

One cookbook, everything in one place

Launch promo · limited time $32Regular price $56save $24 One-time payment · yours to keep
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III · Cooking in America?

A British book that doesn’t leave American cooks guessing

The food stays British, and so do the words. But nothing is left for you to convert or look up.

Both measures, side by side

Every quantity is in grams and millilitres first, with cups, ounces and pounds straight after it.

250 g (2 cups) plain flour · 500 ml (2 cups) beef stock

Every oven, every time

Each temperature gives conventional, fan and gas mark, with Fahrenheit alongside.

200°C / 180°C fan / gas mark 6 (400°F)

A British and American word list

Caster sugar, double cream, frying pan, hob, grill, tin: the first time a British word appears in a recipe, the American word follows in brackets. The full list is on one page at the front.

caster sugar (superfine sugar) · roasting tin (roasting pan)

Substitutes for what’s hard to find

  • Golden syrup: light corn syrup is the usual stand-in
  • Black treacle: molasses is close enough
  • Self-raising flour: make your own with baking powder
  • Suet: ask a butcher for beef kidney fat
  • Bramley apples: Granny Smith, cooked a little longer
  • Mixed spice: pumpkin pie spice is near enough

IV · The recipes

115 recipes in twelve sections

Three from each section, by their real names in the book.

Before the recipes: Why I’m Writing It Down · Alfie’s Larder · What’s in My Kitchen · A Word on Measuring · British and American Words. After them: One Last Thing · Index.

Section One 8 recipes

Breakfasts

  • Full English Breakfast
  • Kedgeree
  • Bubble & Squeak
  • and 5 more

Section Two 7 recipes

Soups & Starters

  • Pea & Ham Soup
  • Cock-a-Leekie Soup
  • Welsh Rarebit
  • and 4 more

Section Three 8 recipes

Snacks & Light Bites

  • Scotch Eggs
  • Pork Pie
  • Ploughman’s Lunch
  • and 5 more

Section Four 12 recipes

Pies, Pasties & Savoury Bakes

  • Steak & Kidney Pie
  • Cornish Pasties
  • Pie & Mash with Liquor
  • and 9 more

Section Five 18 recipes

Proper Mains

  • Toad in the Hole
  • Lancashire Hotpot
  • Faggots & Peas
  • and 15 more

Section Six 10 recipes

Sunday Roasts & Hearty Dinners

  • Traditional Roast Beef
  • Yorkshire Puddings
  • Roast Pork with Crackling
  • and 7 more

Section Seven 7 recipes

Fish & Seafood

  • Fish & Chips
  • Potted Shrimp
  • Cullen Skink
  • and 4 more

Section Eight 10 recipes

Potatoes, Vegetables & Sides

  • Crispy Roast Potatoes
  • Cauliflower Cheese
  • Mushy Peas
  • and 7 more

Section Nine 8 recipes

Breads, Scones & Savoury Baking

  • Cheese Scones
  • Crumpets
  • Stottie Cake
  • and 5 more

Section Ten 10 recipes

Cakes, Biscuits & Tea-Time

  • Victoria Sponge
  • Eccles Cakes
  • Christmas Cake
  • and 7 more

Section Eleven 12 recipes

Puddings & Desserts

  • Sticky Toffee Pudding
  • Treacle Tart
  • Spotted Dick
  • and 9 more

Section Twelve 5 recipes

Sauces, Gravies & Basics

  • Proper Onion Gravy
  • Traditional Custard
  • Mint Sauce
  • and 2 more

V · A look at the pages

One recipe at a time, with its photograph

Every recipe starts on a fresh page with its photograph on the page before it: ingredients first, numbered steps underneath, and Alfie’s Tip at the end.

A photograph for every recipe
Steak & Kidney Pie
Alfie’s Larder

VI · The honest version

What this book is, before you buy

VII · Is it for you

Written for a particular cook

This book is for you if

  • You grew up on this food and never learned to cook it
  • You want the classics written down properly, with real quantities
  • You live outside Britain and miss a proper Sunday dinner
  • You’d rather know why a step matters than just follow it
  • You cook for a family and want food that fills them up

It isn’t for you if

  • You want every dinner on the table in twenty minutes
  • You’re looking for a vegetarian or diet cookbook
  • You want a printed book
  • You want restaurant plating
Old Man Alfie
“Standing at the cooker with a set of scales and a notebook, making her food and writing down what went in, has felt a bit like having her back in the kitchen.”

Old Man Alfie

Alfie grew up in a terraced house in a small Yorkshire town, where his mum’s kitchen was the centre of everything. He was stood on a chair stirring the gravy as soon as he was big enough to see into the pan, and everything he knows about cooking started at her elbow.

At twenty-one he went to work in the kitchen of the local pub, worked his way up to chef, never letting anyone else near the stove. His mum’s steak and kidney pie became the dish the regulars came in for. After thirty-four years the brewery sold the pub and he retired, then followed his kids to America, where he lives near the grandkids and still cooks the British way.

His mum never wrote a recipe down; she cooked by feel. She’s gone now, and this book is her recipes, and the ones he’s built on them, written down properly for the first time, so they don’t disappear.

VIII · Questions

Before you ask

What format is it?

One PDF: 354 pages, 115 recipes, a full-page photograph for every recipe, plus Alfie’s Larder, What’s in My Kitchen, the British and American word list and a full index. Gumroad delivers it the moment you pay, and the download link is emailed to you as well.

Can I read it on my phone or tablet?

Yes. A PDF opens on any phone, tablet or computer: iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac and Windows. The page references and the index are links, so a tap takes you to the recipe. The photographs make it a large file, so it’s worth downloading on wifi.

I’m in America. Will the measurements work for me?

Yes. Every quantity is given in metric with cups, ounces and pounds alongside, and every oven temperature is in Celsius, fan, gas mark and Fahrenheit. British words get the American word in brackets the first time they appear, and there’s a full word list at the front.

Can I get the ingredients outside Britain?

Nearly all of them, at an ordinary supermarket. Alfie’s Larder covers the ones people get stuck on, such as suet, golden syrup, black treacle and Bramley apples, and gives the best stand-in where there is one.

Is there a printed version?

No, it’s a PDF only. You can print any pages you like.

How does checkout work?

Checkout and delivery are handled by Gumroad, a digital storefront. You pay through their secure checkout and the download link arrives by email straight away.

What if it isn’t for me?

Email [SUPPORT EMAIL] within 7 days of buying and you’ll get a full refund.

Who do I contact with a question?

Email [SUPPORT EMAIL] and you’ll get a reply.

Sunday dinner starts here

Cook it properly, the way it’s always been cooked.

354 pages. 115 recipes. 115 photographs. Metric and American measures. Instant download, yours to keep.

Regular price $56$32Launch promo · limited time

Get the cookbook · Regular price $56 $32

Instant PDF download · Reads on phone, tablet and computer · 7-day refund · Secure checkout via Gumroad