Bisto Best Roast Onion Gravy - 250g

In Britain, Bisto is less a brand than a reflex. The tub lives by the kettle, and the Best range is the one that comes out when people are coming round and you want the gravy to look like it had a plan.

People in Canada go looking for it because gravy is where a roast tastes of home or does not. You can get the beef right, the potatoes crispy and the parsnips just so, and still find the jug is the bit that says Sunday at your mum's.

The 250g tub of granules keeps happily in the cupboard with the lid pressed on and the damp kept out. Make a splash for one plate of sausage and mash or a full jug for the table, and stir hard. Lumps are a choice.

It rarely goes in the basket alone. Yorkshire pudding mix, a jar of mint sauce, English mustard and a bag of proper bangers for toad in the hole tend to follow it to the till, and between them you have most of a British Sunday sorted.