Triple Cooked Chips!

The current economic downturn has stimulated pub chefs to inject a strong dose of common sense into their menus. We have been struck this year by the way that even the most ambitious dining pubs have been serving good food that's less fanciful without being any less delicious.

So there are more old favourites around these days, but supercharged by top-quality ingredients and a chef's personal ingenuity. Good old ham, eggs and chips becomes home-reared rare-breed gammon with free range eggs from their own hens, and triple-cooked chips. All sorts of interesting sausages are teamed with unusual mash, perhaps gravy made with caramelised red onions and beer or red wine.

Those triple-cooked chips turn up again with beer- or tempura-battered fresh haddock with home-made tartare sauce, as boosters behind the regained popularity of fish and chips in pubs