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If British recipes are, unfairly, the gag of Western european cuisine, then Scottish cookery bears the brunt of Brit culinary jokes with tales of deep-fried pizzas and chocolate bars. The actuality, naturally, is totally different and the Eastern port towns of Scotland have a long organisation with France and have been influenced by French cuisine for many centuries.
Against this, the Highlands of Scotland offer easier but more conventional fare. The cookery of a poor citizens, scratching a living. Here I present 2 dishes. One a normal ‘peasant’ dish and the other a rich normal cake.
Strategy
Stomach the fish then take away the heads and slit along the belly. Open the fish out, belly side down and bang on the back a number of times with your hand or a rolling pin.
Take away the spine and as many of the pin bones as you can. Wash and pat dry before cutting the fish into fillets. Dust the fish with the flour then dip in softened butter before sprinkling the oatmeal ott and patting to firm down. Coat the maximum amount of the fish as practical then put aside. In the meantime melt the butter in a huge pan and add the herring, skin side up (this may help the fish hold together as it cooks) and cook on both sides till cooked though and the oatmeal is starting to paint nicely (about twelve mins).
Methodology
Seive the flour and slat into a bowl and rub-in the marg till the mix is like fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, half of the orange zest and mix in before adding the eggs, jam, milk and vanilla. Mix totally to form a thick batter.
Grease a 15cm round cake tin and tip the mix into this. Bake in the center of a cooker pre-heated to 170C for approximately eighty minutes till golden brown and a skewer comes out clean. Spatter what’s left of the orange zest on top and permit to cool down for a couple of minutes before turning out onto a wire rack and permitting to chill fully.
Naturally, two recipes can’t give you the entire flavor of the foodstuffs of a complete country. But I’m hoping you see some degree of the variety of Scottish cuisine and you now wish to explore further the character of Scottish recipes.
