There are few things as exciting in life as finding flavour combinations that work. I was chatting to Ruth Harris from Harris Farm Meats at the weekend about the very subject and it was great to discuss different ways of cooking with her free range produce. Ideas just come flooding into the…
Food festivals are one of the true highlights of spring and summer, the opportunity to get into some wonderful scenery and eat true local artisan produce while chatting to the passionate people who produce it never grows tiring. At Loch Fyne Food Fair on the beautiful banks of that sea…
When I was younger I spent a lot of time with my Gran, she looked after us whenever my parents were working, usually with her elder sister. One of my abiding memories of meals with this hilarious double act who would both go on to become nonagenarians was lunches of…
‘What’s tablet?’. It’s a question that probably every Scot has heard at some point in their lives. It’s a kind of Scottish fudge type thing, but isn’t. It’s just tablet. Then you start to explain the ingredients, and get to condensed milk, and you see the eyes light up! Tablet…
Travel and holiday has always meant food for me. Whether paella cooked over orange wood in Valencia, oysters from Étang de Thau, or squats lobsters from Applecross, its always been about first experiences, about aroma and flavour of the local cuisine. Recently holidays have been all about Scotland and it…
This recipe was developed for Fishbox and their Mother’s Day recipe feature. It’s a dish based on one of my favourite traditional Scottish dishes, Cullen skink, along with the chowder I can remember my Mum making us as kids. To make this a bit special I’m adding queen scallops and also…
Scottish cuisine is full of dishes with ancient names that seem fairly odd to the modern tongue; Cullen skink, skirlie, rumbledthumps, and clapshot all spring immediately to mind. However ‘festy cock’ seems to take this tradition to a whole new level, but what exactly is it? Whether celebrating Shrove Tuesday,…
When you think of so many classic French cookbooks coq au vin always jumps out from the page. The cockerel, jointed, marinaded and slow cooked almost ritualistically. It conjures up memories of dark photographs, mahogany tables and brown bowls. These days however the chances of finding a cockerel to actually…
