Food: The best Scottish dishes you can make at home

Scottish seafood is some of the best in the world. This recipe for haddock fishcakes offers the opportunity for a bit of creative license: add some smoked fish if you want a stronger flavour but, if you want to keep it light and fresh, use lemon, herbs and seasoning to the same effect.

Kirsty Scobie and Fenella Renwick’s Haddock Fishcakes

Ingredients (serves four)

400g white potatoes, peeled

500g fresh haddock

500ml full fat milk

3 bay leaves

1 fish stock cube

1⁄2 bunch of spring onions, sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed and thinly sliced

1⁄2 red chilli, deseeded and thinly sliced

small handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped

small handful of chives, chopped

juice and zest of 1⁄2 lemon

250g plain flour

2 eggs, beaten

For the breadcrumbs:

3 slices of white bread

small handful of fresh herbs, chopped (we use parsley and dill)

vegetable oil, for deep frying

Method:

Chop your potatoes into large chunks and add to a pan of water, then bring to the boil and then simmer until soft. Drain and let them steam dry.

While your potatoes are cooking, place your fish into a large pan or frying pan, cover with milk and add your bay leaves and some black pepper. Simmer your fish very gently until it flakes apart, making sure it doesn’t boil. Drain your fish into a colander over the sink, pushing the fish down to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Bin the bay leaves and flake the fish into a bowl (removing any stray bones).

Put your stock cube in a small mug, add two tablespoons of boiling water and mix until you have a runny paste. Scrape this paste into the flaked fish and add the spring onions, garlic, chilli, parsley, chives and the lemon juice and zest. Mix well. When the potatoes are completely dry, mash them, then add to the fish mix.

To make the breadcrumbs, put the bread and herbs into a food processor and whizz until you have fine textured breadcrumbs. Place your flour in one bowl, beaten eggs in another and breadcrumbs in another and season each bowl. Roll the fish mix into eight evenly sized balls, then dip each one into the flour, then the egg and then the breadcrumbs, making sure they are fully coated.

To deep fry, put enough vegetable oil into a large pan or deep fryer to a depth that will fully cover a fishcake: don’t overfill the pan. Heat slowly to 180°C, then carefully add a few fishcakes. Use tongs with your first cake and make sure the oil sizzles as soon as you put it in; remove it and wait if it doesn’t. Fry until the fishcakes are golden brown and start to float in the oil – about five minutes. Remove carefully and put in a warmed oven while you cook the rest of the fishcakes.

If you are pan-frying, heat plenty of vegetable oil in a large frying pan, flatten the fishcakes and fry them for around five minutes on each side.

Kirsty Scobie and Fenella Renwick are chefs and authors of The Seafood Shack: Food & Tales from Ullapool www.kitchenpress.co.uk

Satyapal Singh Rathore (Mutton Curry)

One of the best things about modern Scottish cuisine is that it involves a fusion of different cultures and cooking styles. This recipe from Satyapal Singh Rathore involves a traditionally Scottish meat, mutton, in a Rajasthani Laal Maas, which is usually made during special occasions and festivals in Rajasthan.

Ingredients (serves four)

10 Kashmiri dry red chillies, soaked in water for at least 20 minutes

500g mutton, cut into one-inch pieces

1/2 cup curd (dahi /yoghurt)

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 teaspoons cumin powder

2 teaspoons coriander powder

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

2 tablespoons ginger garlic paste

Ghee, as required

2 brown cardamom

3 cardamom pods/seeds

1-inch cinnamon stick

3 cloves

1 bay leaf

3 onions, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon garam masala powder

Coriander leaves, few sprigs, chopped for garnish

Method:

Add water to a pan. Add the soaked kashmiri red chillies and all the dry spices including cumin seeds, black cardamoms, green cardamoms, cinnamon stick, cloves, bay leaf into the water. Let it boil and switch off the flame once the dry red chillies become soft. Let it cool a bit, retain the water and then grind the spices into a fine paste in a mixer grinder.

In a large mixing bowl, add mutton, yoghurt, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, one tablespoon ginger garlic paste and the dry red chilli paste which we prepared in the beginning. Mix everything well and set aside to marinate in the refrigerator for an hour.

Heat ghee in a pan. Add onions and sauté till they turn light brown in colour. Add the remaining ginger garlic paste and sauté for a minute. Add the marinated mutton to the onions and sauté on high heat for two to three minutes.

Add the required salt and water (which we retained from boiling the dry red chillies) into the pan. Cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for 20 to 25 minutes. You can add more water if you want a watery consistency.

Once the mutton is cooked, light a piece of charcoal, place it in a small metal bowl and place the bowl in the centre of the pan. Add two to three cloves to the coal, pour some ghee and quickly cover the pan with a lid and set aside for two to three minutes.

Remove the charcoal bowl, put the curry back on heat, add garam masala and give a quick stir before removing from heat. Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish it with coriander leaves.

Satyapal Singh Rathore is head chef at Mr Basrai’s, Dundee Street, Edinburgh. For more information, visit mrbasraiedinburgh.com

Scotch Egg

Scotch eggs aren’t exactly thought of as haute cuisine. But this version, with panko breadcrumbs and curry mayonnaise, breathes new life into an old favourite. Food blogger Lucy Loves specialises in hearty home-cooking and her Scotch Egg recipe will certainly warm you up after a wintry walk.

Lucy Loves’ Scotch Eggs (makes six eggs)-

Ingredients:

6 eggs for hard boiling plus 2 eggs for coating

450g to 500g sausagemeat or skinned sausages

Two tablespoons fresh herbs, parsley or thyme are good, finely chopped

Salt and pepper

3 tablespoons plain flour

150g breadcrumbs, panko would be great

Vegetable oil for deep frying, approx 1 litre

(For the curry mayonnaise)

3 tablespoons good mayonnaise

2 teaspoons mango chutney, a nice spicy one if you can get it

1 to 2 teaspoons curry powder

Leaves or parsley to garnish

Method:

Take a medium sized saucepan and fill with water. Bring to the boil then add the six eggs. Boil for exactly 6 minutes then take off the heat and run under cold water. Leave to cool before peeling then popping to one side.

Take a bowl and add your sausage meat. Tip in the fresh herbs and salt and pepper and mix well with your hands or a spoon. Divide the sausage meat into six roughly equal portions then flatten into a flat disc. Wrap this around the egg, smoothing the sausage around the egg, making sure there are no holes.

Repeat with the rest of the sausage and eggs. Serve with the curry mayonnaise as a dip.

The full recipe can be accessed at www.lucylovesuk.com/family-meals/scotch-eggs/