Mince and Tatties

Anyone who has lived or stayed in Scotland will know all about this plain simple but oh so delicious dish. At home as a child it was served up once a week. Mince and Tatties night was always to be looked forward to. Now, for me, it has become the ultimate comfort food. When shopping at the  butchers a pound of mince is always included. My husband calls it Scottish Caviare. Left overs ,if there are any, can be used in a pastie or as known in Scotland a Bridie.

Ingredients:
  500g lean steak mince
1 large white onion, finely chopped.
Beef stock
Salt
White pepper
Gravy browning (optional)
Sploosh of virgin olive oil
A little milk

1. Put oil in a heavy bottomed pan over a low heat and soften the onions but don’t colour them, add the mince, turn up the heat and stir until all the meat is browned and any lumps are bashed out
2. Now add the milk and let it bubble a wee while to remove the graininess you sometimes get with mince. Then add enough stock to cover the mince and simmer gently for about 2 hours during which time season to taste
3. Don’t let the mince dry out, adding a little more stock or water if necessary. Whilst simmering, you may add a teaspoon of gravy browning if you wish to darken the dish but be careful and don’t put in too much!
4. During the cooking period it is important to skim off any fat that rises to the surface. Serve with creamy mashed potatoes and peas
5. I like to add diced carrots to the mince (some add turnips) while cooking, it just depends what jail you did your time in or how your mother made it.


Ingredients for the creamy mashed potatoes:

• 1kg potatoes, (Red Roosters or Maris Pipers work well)
• Good lump of butter
• A little milk or cream
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Peel the potatoes and cut  into even sized chunks.

Method for the creamy mashed potatoes:
. Put the spuds in a large pot, cover with boiling water, a dessert spoon of salt and simmer for approximately 25 minutes or until done
Once cooked, drain them, put them back in their pot and cover with a clean tea towel which will absorb some of the steam
Mash the potatoes ( I use a hand held mixer)adding butter and cream and beating with a wooden spoon or a spurtle if you have one
Serve with the mince and some garden peas

If you want to thicken it a little bit add a little oatmeal. Healthier than cornflour or flour and yet traditional.

Shortbread

I don't make a huge variety of biscuits/cookies. I don't really find the need. Shortbread makes a great base and is so dependable. Quick and easy to make.  Endless flavour variations and a lovely light buttery crunchy mouthful. Perfect on it's own with a cup of tea or made very thin to accompany a dessert. The basic recipe came from Rita who lives away up in the far North of Scotland. A proper shortbread recipe.


Shortbread Trivia

In Shetland a decorated shortbread was traditionally broken over a bride’s head before she entered her new home.

Shortbread was classified as a bread by bakers to avoid paying the tax placed on biscuits.

The Scottish custom of eating shortbread on New Year’s Eve derives from an ancient pagan ritual of eating Yule Cakes.

January 6th of each year is National Shortbread Day.


Basic Shortbread

8oz/225gms butter
4oz/100gms caster sugar
8oz/225gms plain flour
4oz/100gms cornflour for a denser biscuit or rice flour for a crisper lighter texture
pinch of salt

Cream softened butter and sugar.
Add the sifted flours and salt gradually and mix well
Turn out onto a floured worktop and knead lightly into a round
Roll out and cut into biscuits
Or
Roll into a long cylinder, wrap in cling film and set in the fridge for about 30 minutes then slice into biscuits.
Bake at 350F /180.C /160.C Fan/ Gas 4 for about 15 - 20 mins or until golden
Place on a cooling rack and sprinkle with caster sugar while still warm.
Makes about 30 biscuits with a small cutter

Variations:

Chocolate 
Replace 50gms/2 oz flour with cocoa and/or add chocolate chips.
Orange
Add grated rind of and orange (this is lovely with the chocolate)
Lemon
Add grated rind of a lemon
Spice
Add sweet spice in any combination or on it's own such as cinnamon, mixed spice or ginger.


Use soft brown sugar to give a hint of caramel
Add earl grey tea
Lavender
Rose


The possibilities are endless. Just a little imagination. They can be as plain or fancy as you like.

Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,

Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm. 

Address to a Haggis by Robert Burns. Scotland's favourite son. The Bard. We are expected to revere this eighteenth century poet but trust me when it is a compulsory subject to study in Scottish schools by the time you finish you could see him in hell. Please don't get me started on Tam O'Shanter. While having no love of the poet I am a huge fan of the subject matter, Haggis. Up there with whisky it is one of Scotland's finest exports. I was reared on it and love it..  I can of course buy it in this part of the world, but, for some unknown reason they make it with pork. Mutton /lamb is what should be  used. Well would you like a beef burger made of pork?.When I am in Scotland I always buy two or three large sausages from a butchers then slice it and freeze it.

This is a much more convenient way of using haggis. I can just lift a few slices from the freezer as required and turn them in the pan. They take on the crumbly texture just the same as the traditional haggis packed in a sheep's stomach. Lovely an spicy it is a taste experience you should not miss. It also makes a wonderful stuffing for steak or chicken

If you are a very brave and adventurous cook you can of course make it from scratch

Haggis Ingredients:


1 sheep's stomach bag
1 sheep's pluck - liver, lungs and heart
3 onions
250g beef Suet
150g oatmeal
salt and lots of black pepper
a pinch of cayenne
150mls of stock/gravy

Haggis Cooking Directions:


1. Clean the stomach bag thoroughly and soak overnight. In the morning turn it inside out.

2. Wash the pluck and boil for 1.5 hours, ensuring the windpipe hangs over the pot allowing drainage of the impurities.

3. Mince the heart and lungs and grate half the liver.

4. Chop up the onions and suet.

5. Warm the oatmeal in the oven.

6. Mix all the above together and season with the salt and pepper. Then add the cayenne.

7. Pour over enough of the pluck boiled water to make the mixture watery.

8. Fill the bag with the mixture until it's half full.

9. Press out the air and sew the bag up.

10. Boil for 3 hours (you may need to prick the bag with a wee needle if it looks like blowing up!) without the lid on.

11. Serve with neeps and tatties.

Me? I prefer the easy route to my favourite dish. I'll leave the hard part to the butcher. Perhaps someday I will have a go.
As a post script I don't usually serve the haggis as shown in the photo. The idea is just to pile it on a plate with creamy mashed potatoes (tatties)and puréed turnips (neeps) but in that form it is not very photogenic so I poshed it up a little.

Battenberg Cake

I received the book 'Bake and Decorate' by Fiona Cairns from a dear friend. It is a gorgeous book. Full of beautiful recipes and pictures with wonderful relatively simple but stunning ideas for decorating her cakes. It makes you want to rush off and create a masterpiece. Well want is one thing and do is another but when I opened the book the page fell open at the Battenberg cake. Oh what a rush of memories. Such a retro little cake. I remembered buying them in Marks and Spencers in the sixties. It was begging to be made. The recipe states it serves eight. Well in this case it served one.

Here is a little useless information for you.
The 4 squares in each slice represent the four German Battenberg princes (Louis, Alexander, Henry and Francis Joseph) at the time of the marriage on 30 April 1884 of Queen Victoria's granddaughter Princess Victoria to Prince Louis of Battenberg (1854 to 1921), who would become the grandfather of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. In 1917 Louis changed his surname from Battenberg to Mountbatten.

Battenberg  Cake     
Serves 8
 
Ingredients
175g/6oz unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the tin
175g /6oz self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
175g /6oz white caster sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 or 2 tbsp milk, if needed
A little pink (or red) food colour
4 tbsp apricot jam
Icing sugar, to dust
250g /9oz yellow marzipan (or natural if you prefer)

Method

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/fan 160ºC/340ºF/gas mark 31/2.

Lightly butter a 20cm square tin and line the base with baking parchment. Also cut out a rectangle of baking parchment, as long and deep as the tin, to act as a divider lengthways between the 2 colours of sponge.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, or in a large bowl with a handheld whisk, first sift together the flour and baking powder. Add the butter, cut into knobs, then the sugar, eggs and vanilla. Beat until smooth, adding a little milk to loosen the mixture if it seems too stiff. Weigh out half the batter and place the divider down the centre of the tin.

Carefully place half the batter into 1 side of the tin. Tint the remaining mixture pink - it's much better to do this not too exuberantly, so take care - and stir until blended. As neatly as possible, spoon the pink mixture into the other side of the tin.

Bake for about 30–35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean and the cake springs back to the touch. Remove from the oven, leave in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack. When completely cold, slice each colour lengthways into 2 equal blocks, then trim off all the rough edges.

Warm the jam in a small pan, push it through a sieve, then use it to glue the strips of cake together lengthways, so the natural and pink colours form opposite quarters.

On a work surface dusted with icing sugar, roll out the marzipan into a rectangle the length of the cake and wide enough to wrap around all 4 sides. Trim it to size. Brush the remaining jam all over the cake and wrap the marzipan around the cake. Seal the join by gently pressing it together, then turn so this seam is hidden on the bottom. Trim the ends with a sharp knife, then score a criss-cross on the top surface.
© Fiona Cairns

This is Fiona Cairns recipe. The only change I would make is the tin. I think it would be much simpler if the mixture was baked in two separate loaf tins and cut in two. Using the divider is very faffy and requires a lot of trimming. I haven't tried the loaf tin but if you do before me let me know.

Baked Coconut Custard

I love Grannymar's Blog. She does not have a food Blog but Monday is 'Food Monday' and she always has an interesting recipe. Good old fashioned uncomplicated food of which I am so fond. I love baked custard and when I saw this some time ago I just had to make it. The use of coconut milk instead of cream is lovely. It makes it a very light dessert. It looks pretty and so quickly prepared it would be perfect for a dinner party. I think the addition of a crispy thin shortbread biscuit would set it off perfectly.


Coconut Custard Serves 4

Preheat your oven to 150.C/300F/Gas 1-2

Ingredients

4 eggs
3 ozs light brown sugar
8 fluid ozs coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method

Place all the ingredients into a food processor and process until smooth or mix together with a whisk in a bowl by hand. 
Transfer to individual lightly buttered ramekin dishes
Place the ramekin dishes in a deep sided tin and place in the oven.
Pour water into the tin to come approximately half way up the side of the dishes.
 Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the custard has just set but has a little wobble.
Present as your imagination takes you.

Veda Bread

There is a little malt loaf particular to Northern Ireland called Veda.

My hubby loves it. I have tried for years but have been unable to replicate it in the kitchen. Why? because I could not get the necessary dark malt flours. Well I could have but they only sold in bulk to the bakeries. Even at my most enthusiastic I don't think I could get through 50 kilos of flour. The other day I finally found my flour courtesy of Bakery Bits. A very good website selling flour and all sorts of bread making equipment. All I had was the ingredients on the loaf sleeve and my fiercest critic (Hubby) and the knowledge that hundreds of ex pat. ulster people have been searching for a recipe but with little success (Google told me this) Previous attempts with just malt extract and treacle failed to give the definitive flavour particular to Veda.
I explained to Rhyley what I was doing. The tension in the kitchen was immense as I took the loaf out of the oven and waited for it to cool. Enter Hubby who had a slice slathered in butter while four female eyes watched in apprehension as he chewed. He then uttered the words 'That's it' and watched in amazement as Rhyley and I danced round the kitchen. Success is heady stuff. I haven't had to buy a Veda since.
You can just make this with the malt extract and treacle and it will give a nice malt loaf but if you are a fan it takes the malted flours.

I make my loaf in a covered mermaid pan as it gives the bread a lovely soft sandwich texture. It can of course be baked in an ordinary loaf pan.

Makes one small loaf.
Oven temperature
200.C/180.C Fan/400.F/Gas 6


Ingredients


450gms/1lb White Bread Flour
1 teasp Roasted barley Malt Flour
2 teasp Nut Brown Malt Flour
1 teasp instant yeast
1 teasp salt
1 tablespoon oil
1 large teaspoon malt extract
1 large teaspoon treacle or molasses
200-250 mls warm water

Glaze (If desired)

A teaspoon of warmed treacle/molasses


Method


Mix all the ingredients together using 200mls of the water. If it seems a little dry add a little more water just a drop at a time. It should be a softish slightly sticky dough
Knead for 10 minutes by hand or five in a stand mixer with a dough hook.
Form into a ball and place in an oiled bowl covered with cling film 
Leave somewhere warm to rise for about an hour until doubled in volume.
Gently pull the dough out of the bowl onto an oiled work top and dimple out with your fingers to disperse the gas.

Fold the dough over towards yourself bit by bit firming each roll with your thumbs as you go..
When you have a sausage fold it into thirds like a busines letter.
Turn it over and tease the sides down and under until you get a cob shape.
Place this into a greased 2 lb loaf pan and squash it down until it fills the base.
Place the tin inside a plastic bag and leave for 30-40 mins until it has risen again. You will know when it is ready if you very gently shake the end of it trembles a bit like a jelly.
Brush gently with the glaze and bake for approx thirty minutes.
The loaf will sound hollow when tapped on the underside when it is done. If not pop it back in the tin and bake for a further five minutes and check again.

TIP
Oil your hands and the work top when working with the dough. It stops it sticking to you and everything else

Parmigiana

This was just an unpretentious supper of ragu pasta of which we all enjoy from time to time.So easy to prepare. I serve it with a little salad and garlic bread and love its simplicity of flavour. This uncomplicated dish however, was  pushed into a different dimension using a wonderful  three year old Parmigiana from Tuscany. A very dear friend had the big heart to send it to me. If you are used to the supermarket variety of this cheese nothing will prepare you for the real flavour of Italy. My tongue is still tingling two hours later. Heaven on a plate. The rather nice Chianti helped too. Perfect to wash it down with. If you ever have the good fortune to visit Italy please leave room in your case to take home a big chunk of this. You won't regret it.