“Cool your jets,” advises Australia’s most famous British culinary import, Matt Preston regarding the controversy raging about “Coronation Quiche.”

Preston points out that the recipe, appearing on the Royals’ coronation website, is simply a menu suggestion for parties that will happen all over the UK as the world gears up to watch the coronation of King Charles on Saturday, May 6.

“This is designed as a dish to serve either hot or cold at hundreds of street parties across the country, not at some fancy post-coronation lunch with all the other royalty and dignitaries,” Preston says.

And while the quiche (below) has incited debate, due in part to the inclusion of lard (pork fat) and the recent egg shortage in the UK, it’s the other sanctified dishes on the royal website that are inciting Preston’s disdain.

One is a contribution from Ken Hom CBE, an American-Chinese chef whose program Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery, introduced a generation to pan-Asian or Asian-fusion cooking when it first appeared on the BBC in 1984.

Hom’s recipe takes a spring lamb rack and marinates it in sesame, mustard and soy sauce, in his trademark Asian-fusion style, before baking in the oven, He suggests serving it with roast potatoes and a green salad.

Preston’s verdict?

“Any dish that generalises itself ‘Asian’ instead of ‘Thai’ or ‘Sichuan or whatever is automatically a bit dated. We’ve well and truly stopped doing that here,” he says.

The prawn and pineapple tacos, by Masterchef UK co-presenter Gregg Wallace is another dish featured on the coronation website that Preston reckons sounds like it’s from a different decade.

“At least Nadiya Hussain’s grilled aubergine (eggplant) has a wry knowing smile about its nostalgic yoghurt dressing,” he says.

Hussain’s eggplant dressing is flavoured with curry powder and mango chutney, garnished with raisins and crispy onions, in a nod to the classic coronation chicken.

“Ex-British Bake Off winner Nadiya has form cooking for the Royals,” Preston says. “She made a 90th birthday cake for the late Queen Elizabeth – a three-layer orange drizzle cake with orange curd don’tcha know?”

Coronation chicken, or ‘Poulet Reine Elizabeth’ as it was originally called, was the invention of the founder of the famous Le Cordon Bleu cookery school, Rosemary Hume, and florist and writer Constance Spry for the banquet lunch after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

“It was a bit radical and exotic for those post-rationing times, with poached chook, curry paste, dried apricots or puree, cream and mayo, tomato puree and fried onion,” Preston says.

Often with the addition of raisins or sultanas and flaked almonds as a garnish today, it’s become part of the culinary lexicon of Britain, found on sandwiches, in salads and stuffed into baked potatoes.

Possibly the most English of all King Charles’ coronation party dishes (and the most complex) is dessert – a trifle by Michelin-starred chef Adam Handling, with ginger custard and strawberry jelly.

Handling’s recipe includes parkin, a spiced ginger oat cake made with treacle in Yorkshire, or golden syrup in Lancashire, as well as from-scratch strawberry jelly and candied pistachios.

“Baking parkin (ginger cake), making your own jelly rather than using a packet, candying pistachios? I wonder how many people want to go to all that effort?” Preston says.

“Surely there’s a better way? And wouldn’t it be nice if some of these official coronation recipes reflected the cooks and culinary ideas of the other 14 countries of which Charles will become head of state when he’s crowned?”

“This is a missed opportunity. Just look at the recipes on delicious.com.au and there’s loads to choose from. How about Louise Pickford’s Jamaican-style jerked chicken with rice and peas (above)? Cheap, delicious and cleverly referencing coronation chicken which was served originally served with a salad of rice, peas and pimentos.

Then there’s Canadian poutine (above), cheese curd, chips and gravy, that is both very Scottish and very Victorian – we are looking at you Ballarat and Anglesea. And if you use cheddar curds as in the delicious. recipe, it has that English touch as well.”

And Preston, points out there’s a whole wealth of Aussie dishes for inspiration too.

“Whether that’s a patriotic as a red, white and blue frozen berry pavlova (that the New Zealanders can feel is a nod to them too), Rosheen Khan’s Sichuan sausage sanga or serving a coronation prawn cocktail at any coronation street party?”

And perhaps finish off with Preston’s gin and cherry trifle (above) – a fitting homage to Charles’ grandmother who famously enjoyed a gin.

Related story: How the Queen’s favourite foods changed eating habits around the world