Describe a dish you would choose to cook for guests.
A card about the one dish you trust yourself with when other people are watching. It mixes process language with hospitality, which is a rich combination.
The task card
Describe a dish you would choose to cook for guests.
You should say:
- what the dish is
- how it is prepared
- when you first learned to make it
and explain why you would serve it to guests.
Now say it yourself
Record your own two minutes on this card and have it transcribed and marked against the Speaking criteria. Practising is free; the band estimate is part of Pro.
Record my answerHow long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Name the dish and give it a context in the first sentences: 'a slow-cooked lamb stew my grandmother made every winter'. Then walk through 'how it is prepared' as a sequence — brown the meat, soften the onions, leave it for two hours — using sequence markers, because process language is exactly what this bullet tests.
For 'when you first learned to make it', tell the learning story: standing on a chair beside a parent, a disastrous first attempt at university, a recipe you eventually stopped measuring. A strong answer includes one detail about how your version differs from the original.
The final bullet is about hospitality, not cooking skill: why this dish for guests? It scales up easily, it can be made ahead, it starts conversations because nobody expects it. The common mistake is choosing the most impressive dish you know rather than the one with a story — guests and examiners both prefer the story.
Ideas you can actually use
Three angles on this card. Pick the one closest to something real in your own life — invented material is what makes candidates hesitate at ninety seconds.
Choose a dish you can actually sequence
- Something with three or four clear stages, so the process section writes itself
- A dish that can be made ahead, which is a real and interesting reason to serve it to guests
- A regional or family dish where the version you make differs from the standard one
Process language to plan in advance
- Preparation verbs: soak, marinate, brown, simmer, reduce, rest, fold through
- Timing markers: the night before, while that is happening, by which point, in the last ten minutes
- The one step that goes wrong if you rush it — that detail proves you have really cooked it
Why it works for guests specifically
- It scales up without extra work, so eight people is no harder than four
- It is finished before anyone arrives, so you are not stuck in the kitchen
- It suits people with different diets, or it is something most guests have never had
What your one minute of notes should look like
Not sentences — a few words per cue point. This is the level of detail sixty seconds actually buys you, and it is enough to speak from for two minutes.
- WHAT — slow-cooked lamb + rice, my mother's version
- HOW — marinate night before, brown, 3 hrs low, rest 20 min
- LEARNED — watched my mother, then phone calls from my first flat
- WHY GUESTS — all done before they arrive + feeds 10 as easily as 4
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
If people are coming over, I cook one thing, and I have cooked it for about ten years: a slow-cooked lamb dish with rice, which is my mother's recipe and not really anybody else's version of it. The preparation starts the night before, which is the part I wouldn't skip. The meat goes into yoghurt with garlic, ginger, and about six spices, and it sits in the fridge overnight — that's what makes it tender rather than merely cooked. On the day itself I brown it in batches, which takes patience and which I used to rush, then everything goes into one heavy pot with onions and stock and into the oven on a very low heat for about three hours. The rice is done separately in the last twenty minutes, and then, crucially, the whole thing rests before anyone touches it. I learned it in two stages. I watched my mother make it for years without paying any real attention, which is how most people learn nothing. Then I moved into my own flat at twenty-two, tried it from memory, and produced something genuinely inedible. What actually taught me was about four phone calls over the following year, where she talked me through the bits I had misremembered. Why would I serve it to guests? Mainly because it's finished before they arrive. That sounds unambitious, but I think the worst thing you can do as a host is spend the evening in the kitchen with your back to everyone. This sits in the oven and looks after itself. And it scales — ten people is no more work than four, you just use a bigger pot. It's also, and this matters to me, the thing that makes my flat smell like my mother's kitchen, which isn't a reason I'd give out loud at the table but is probably the real one.
Why this works: The process section carries genuine sequencing and precise verbs — marinate, brown in batches, rest — without turning into a recipe read aloud, because the first person stays in it throughout. The 'how you learned' bullet is told as a small story with a failure in it, which is far more convincing than 'my mother taught me'. The final bullet gives a practical reason, a scaling reason, and then an emotional one held back to the last line, which is a strong way to finish.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- a signature dish
The dish a person is known for making well.
- to marinate
To leave food in a seasoned mixture before cooking; a precise process verb.
- comfort food
Simple food that makes people feel content and at home.
- to follow a recipe
Standard collocation; contrast it with 'to improvise'.
- a crowd-pleaser
Informal noun for something almost everyone enjoys.
- made from scratch
Prepared from basic ingredients rather than bought ready-made.
The same phrases in a full sentence
A phrase list is only useful if you know how the words sit around it. Say each of these aloud once before you attempt the card.
- to marinate it overnight
- “I marinate it overnight, which is genuinely the only step that cannot be skipped.”
- on a low heat
- “Then it goes in the oven on a low heat for about three hours and you leave it alone.”
- it is very forgiving
- “It is a very forgiving dish — twenty minutes either way makes almost no difference.”
- to go down well
- “It always goes down well, even with people who say they do not really eat lamb.”
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
Cooking at home
Example questions
- 1How often do people cook at home in your country?
- 2Who usually does the cooking in families?
- 3Do you think cooking skills are being lost?
Eating together
Example questions
- 1How important is it for families to eat together?
- 2Can you suggest why people enjoy inviting guests for a meal?
- 3How have eating habits changed in your country in recent years?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Activities and habits. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.