This column set out to take you, my readers, on a whistlestop tour of British food, putting my own spin on some of the ingredients and dishes that define each region. We’ve had potted co*ckles inspired by Morecambe Bay, my recipe for pork pie in tribute to Melton Mowbray, and drop scones with apple cider jam from my West Country homeland, to name a few. Today I am adding Scotland to that list, a country which I’m happy to say remains part of the UK, with a stunning choice of raw ingredients.
Scotland is a treasure-trove of sights, smells and tastes. I love its climate – the winters always the wettest, coldest, and snowiest of anywhere in the UK, making spring’s arrival all the more welcome; I love its heather-strewn moorlands and pine trees that reach into the sky and darken it with their canopy; I love the quality of its native ingredients, which are a chef’s dream.
Some of my favourite chefs are Scottish. From Tom Kitchin to Martin Wishart and Andrew Fairlie, Scotland has produced some masters in the kitchen, who really do its produce justice. Though they’re all very different in style, these are chefs who let their ingredients do the talking: wild girolles, beautiful free-swimming salmon and fat Orkney scallops, perfectly lean game. None of them follow culinary fashions, but rather cook food that they would want to eat.
True to the purpose of Britain on a Plate, I’ve done the same with my own set of recipes inspired by Scotland. I’ve cherry-picked my favourite ingredients and worked them into my own “Scottish” – if not authentically Scottish – creations.
It struck me while I was writing this piece that a couple of the dishes are almost like a Scottish take on two famous Italian recipes: pearl barley “risotto” and the filled brandy snaps, which look uncannily like a boozy equivalent to a Sicilian cannoli. This seemed bizarre at first, but then I realised that Scottish and Italian cooking traditions are deceptively similar. Their ingredients, by virtue of their climates, might be totally different, but they beg to be enjoyed in their simplest form. Food from Scotland, like that from Italy, should not be over-complicated. It is best enjoyed pure and unadorned.
My Scotch risotto uses pearl barley (the main ingredient of Scotch Broth) as its base which, like rice, takes on all the other flavours within the dish, adding a more robust body in so doing. I’ve combined this with another great Scottish ingredient, black pudding. I love the Stornoway variety above any other for its extra oat content and rich seasoning; it crispens very easily when fried, making it the perfect texture for a brothy barley risotto.
The venison wellington with neeps and tatties is a true celebration of cool-climate cuisine. It’s one of those solid dishes you want to have after a long walk. Venison is usually seen as a wintery meat, but if it isn’t hung for too long, the loin has a soft flavour and texture not unlike a beef fillet. Source it well, from somewhere like the Scottish moors, and you’ll get prime athletic meat that tastes of where it’s grown.
This dish is a bit more effort to make than the other recipes here, so make sure you’ve got some big red wine to go with it and an appreciative crowd! Go the whole hog (or deer?) for Scotland and serve with “neeps and tatties” – or swede and potatoes. The bitter kick of swede added to buttery peppered potatoes is lush, once again championing what we do really well in this country by capitalising on our strengths, among them root veg.
I couldn’t write a column about Scotland without a nod to whisky, that amber-coloured spirit, of which the Scots are masters. Scotch whisky has a similar effect to brandy when used in cooking; its harsh alcoholic hit goes very well with cream, sugar, vanilla and orange in the likes of fruit cakes, malt loaf and coffee. I’ve used it in cream and combined it with brandy in my dessert recipe below, making for a rather alcoholic hybrid – Sicilian cannoli meets the sweet I most associate with childhood Christmases, the brandy snap. As promised, the Scottish ingredient certainly does the talking.
Toasted pearl barley risotto with Stornoway black pudding
A wonderful take on an Italian classic using bonnie Scottish ingredients.
Serves 4-6
350g pearl barley
50g rapeseed oil, plus a bit extra
350g Stornoway black pudding, diced
1 onion
100g butter
1.5 litres chicken stock
2 tbsp mascarpone
100g fresh parmesan, grated
A splash of cider vinegar
1 bunch chives, chopped
100g spinach leaves, washed
Salt and black pepper, to taste
1 Put the barley on to a tray and roast in a preheated oven at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 for 20 minutes until it is toasted and brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
2 Heat up a large nonstick frying pan and drizzle in a little oil. Fry the diced black pudding until crispy. Drain on kitchen roll and keep to one side.
3 Finely dice the onion and heat up a large saucepan. Add the rapeseed oil and 25g of the butter to the pan. When melted, add the chopped onion and stir until soft and cooked.
4 Add the pearl barley and cook on a low heat for 3-4 minutes. Add about ¼ of the chicken stock to the barley and cook until the liquid has been absorbed. Repeat until the stock has gone and the barley is cooked, but still has a little bite to it – about 40 minutes.
5 When cooked, add the crispy black pudding, mascarpone, parmesan and the remaining butter. Stir and remove from the heat. Leave to rest for 2-3 minutes. Season and add the cider vinegar. Stir in the chopped chives and spinach. It may need loosening a little, if so, just use hot water or any remaining stock. Serve immediately.
Venison wellington using mushrooms and chicken mousse
This is a big effort to make, but like all good things, you get out of it what you put in!
Serves 4-6
1 loin of scotch venison (700g–900g)
1 square ready-rolled puff pastry (45cm)
150g soaked crepinette
4 egg yolks
1 tbsp icing sugar
For the chicken mousse
2 chicken breasts, diced
½ tsp white pepper
½ tbsp rock salt
A pinch of cayenne
1 tbsp herbes de provence
2 eggs
1 tbsp truffle oil
150ml double cream
For the duxelle
500g button mushrooms
100ml double cream
Truffle oil
1 tbsp mixed dry herbs
1 To make the chicken mousse, put the chicken in an electric blender with all the dry ingredients and blitz. Add the eggs one by one, then add the truffle oil, then the cream, and bring together in the blender.
2 To make the duxelle, in a food processor, blend the mushrooms, put them in a pan and cook with the herbs until all the water has evaporated. When they have reached “duxelles” stage, season with salt, pepper and truffle oil. Add some double cream and cook a little. Remove and chill in the fridge.
3 To make the wellington, first sear the venison loin in a large hot pan, just to put some colour on the outside of the loin. Put the whole loin on a baking tray and into a preheated oven at just 50C/120F/gas ¼ for 2 hours. Remove from the oven, cool, then chill it in the fridge.
4 Mix the duxelle and the chicken mousse together. On a chopping board, put a layer of the crepinette, then spread a layer of duxelle mix on top. Put the chilled venison on top and cover it with duxelle mix. Wrap it in the crepinette and chill.
5 When chilled, put the puff pastry on to a floured surface. Put the venison in the middle and then wrap it up like an envelope. Seal it together with egg-wash made with the yolks and icing sugar. Egg-wash the whole parcel and chill until needed.
6 Bake in a preheated oven at 190C/375F/gas mark 5 for 20 minutes until the pastry is cooked, and then serve.
Neeps and tatties
750g swede, peeled and cut into large dice
750g potato, peeled and cut the same size and shape
Salt and cracked black pepper, to taste
1 large knob of butter
1 Put the diced swede into a pan and cover with water. Put the pan on to the heat and bring to the boil. Add a large pinch of salt and simmer for 10 minutes. After this time, add the potato to the pan and continue to simmer until cooked.
2 When soft, drain in a colander and leave to steam-dry for 5 minutes. Then put them back into the pan and add the large knob of butter. Season with salt and cracked black pepper – this should taste “naughty”. Crush the cubed neeps and tatties together with a fork or potato masher and serve hot with the venison.
Brandy snaps filled with scotch and brown sugar cream
The old ones are the best. Brandy snaps have a really nostalgic place in my heart. When I first started cooking, they were the thing to have on your dessert menu, but since then they have disappeared. Time for a revival?
Makes around 25-30 snaps
100g butter
100g brown sugar
100g golden syrup
100g plain flour
½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp brandy
For the whisky cream
570ml milk
1 vanilla pod
175g soft dark brown sugar
5 egg yolks
50g flour
125ml scotch whisky
200g creme fraiche
50ml scotch whisky
Zest of 1 large orange
1 Put the butter, 125g brown sugar and golden syrup into a pan and gently heat until the sugar and butter have melted. Add the flour, ginger and brandy and beat with a wooden spoon. Take off the heat and transfer to a clean container. Put it into the fridge to chill.
2 Line a flat baking tray with some parchment or a nonstick pastry mat. With your hands, make balls of the mix the size of large marbles and arrange well apart on the tray, as they will spread. Bake in batches in a preheated oven at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 for 8-10 minutes until they are set, golden brown and look lacy. Remove Take the tray out the oven and roll each disc into cigar shapes and leave to cool. Keep in an airtight container until needed.
3 To make the whisky cream, scrape half the vanilla seeds from the pod into the pint of milk and bring to the boil. Whisk 125g soft dark brown sugar with the egg yolks until light and fluffy.
4 Add the flour to the yolks and mix together. Pour on the boiled milk and the rest of the vanilla, mix together and remove the pod. Pour the mix back into the pan and return it to the heat. Cook, whisking all of the time until it thickens. Turn the heat down to low and cook for a further 4-5 minutes.
5 Pass the mix through a fine sieve into a bowl. Pour in 75ml whisky and whisk together. Cover the bowl with a layer of clingfilm to stop it forming a skin and cool it in the fridge. .
6 In a separate bowl, whisk together the creme fraiche, remaining 50ml whisky and the remaining 50g soft dark brown sugar until they form soft peaks. Add the orange zest. Soften the whisky cream with a spatula and then fold in the creme fraiche. Put this mix into a piping bag and pipe it into your brandy snap cigars. Stack them up and dust them with icing sugar. Serve.
