When you walk into the Great Kitchen at Stirling Castle you are immediately taken by the vastness of the place. The recreation of the kitchen scene of the middle ages features a huge array of people going about various tasks. Baking bread, making beer, carrying venison and the obligatory kitchen boy generally getting skelped. Some of the foods that line the tables that would have been used for preparation would be familiar to most of us today; carrots, milk, turnips, potatoes, beef and pork. Some such as peacock and swan perhaps less so.

Lying open on the recipe book stand you’ll find a few illuminated pages with details of food from the 16th Century and one in particular caught my eye, for a number of reasons. Stewed mutton. I think mutton is a most underused and underrated meat, rich, earthy and packed full of flavour in my opinion I was always going to be drawn to its promise of flavour. The other reason was the way the dish was seasoned in those days. Salt being hugely valuable and highly sought after was obviously not to be wasted on the simple sheep slow cooking over the fire. Instead lemons, pepper, vinegar and sugar would impart the freshness desired by the privileged Scot of the day.

Setting about trying to recreate this dish as close to the traditional cooking methods as possible I used a heavy based iron pot over a flame (a gas flame but still a flame). Rather than using stock I used mutton gigot and let the flavour from the bone impart its gelatinous goodness to the cooking liquor of water. I’m not a huge fan of citrus but the lemmon duly went in along with the corance and a ‘grace’ of pepper and after several hours I sat down to watch the jester, listen to the harp and eat my delicious boyled leg of Mutton with lemmons.

Stewed mutton

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	2-4
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	3 hours
Total time	3 hours, 10 minutes

An ancient Scottish recipe from the Great Kitchen of Stirling Castle

Ingredients

• 450g Mutton
• 1 Lemon (thinly sliced)
• 425ml Water
• 50g Currants
• 6 Black peppercorns (coarsely ground)
• 1 teaspoon Wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Sugar

Directions

Boil the mutton gently in the water for one hour then remove and chop into small pieces, saving the bone.

Add the utton and bone back to the stock then add the lemon, currants and pepper and bring to a slow boil again. Cook until tender, 2-3 hours then season with the sugar and vinegar and serve.

I went through a phase of wanting to be a chef, quite a long phase actually. Then I thought about doing a supper club. But who would come, what to cook? Then I met Michael Casey, the self proclaimed resident genius of the Cafebarge, an old Dutch barge moored in Tarbert harbour, and he threw down the gauntlet. When I was coming up with my list Michael said ‘put your reputation where your mouth is and do a pop up on the barge’. It is this not too serious, almost self-deprecating approach to food that I love about Cafebarge. The menu is tapas style seafood and vegetarian plates, the menu changes daily depending on season, catch and very possibly mood and is all local where humanly possible, the vegetable market in Blochairn being the furthest food miles I believe. So nowhere better for me to ask people to pay their hard earned money for MY food. Nervous much?

Therefore on Saturday 18th May for the princely sum of £22 you can sit down to a meal which will be predominantly sourced from the fish and seafood landed in Tarbert that day as well as seasonal vegetables and Scottish cheeses. That’s as much as I’m giving away of the menu for the moment. Or not quite. As the task of doing everything for up to 30 covers is a bit much for me, but we wanted to give the chef the night off, hopefully to come to the barge but will leave that up to him. So assisting me on the night (or vice versa depending on how things go) I’m delighted to have Sumayya Jamil. Sumayya is the foremost authority on Pakistani food in the UK through writing, teaching and supperclubs. Founder of Pukka Paki and a lady whose mission is to put the haunting flavours of Pakistan on the map where they belong she has appeared in Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Nation and we are delighted she is joining us on Cafebarge to weave some desi flavours into the guid Scots produce.

Come along and enjoy the night on the shores of beautiful Loch Fyne.

I rarely make desserts. I’ve mentioned this before. The desserts of my childhood, which I would have every day when being looked after by my Gran, were simple affairs, ground rice or custard, lovingly made to order and always with a square of cooking chocolate or a cube of jelly melted in the middle. Or they were shop bought apple pies with cream, or my favourite rhubarb crumble, in fact any crumble but rhubarb was the only one that I actually enjoyed the hot, slightly sweet, slightly tangy fruit lurking beneath as much as the buttery richness of the topping. Always with custard, always. Please never offer me cream or ice cream with crumble.

Then I discovered cranachan. That Scottish dessert that sounds more like a mountain or a shinty team and which signals the end of a traditional Burns supper. I’ve no idea when this tradition started, given that January is not exactly fruit picking weather in Scotland, and if you’re going to make cranachan why settle for anything other than Scottish raspberries? However tradition it is and so after my first ever Burns supper I was hooked. It should come as no surprise to the uninitiated that this dessert is wonderfully warming and luxurious. If you put five of the finest ingredients known to man; double cream, oatmeal, whisky, raspberries and heather honey together only an fool could fail to bring joy to your palate. However the sum of the parts surpasses even how good you imagine it’s going to be.

Therefore I urge you to rummage around in the freezer for the last of the bags of frozen raspberries you picked in the summer sunshine and make this dessert as summertime begins again. Just make sure that you understand the concept of soft peaks.

Cranachan

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	4
Prep time	5 minutes
Cook time	20 minutes
Total time	25 minutes

A deliciously light yet luxurious Scottish dessert

Ingredients

• 60g Fine oatmeal
• 3 tablespoons Whisky (I like to use Aberlour)
• 500ml Double cream
• 3 tablespoons Heather honey
• 250g Raspberries

Note

Traditionally the dish would have been served with the three separate ingredients, whisky soaked oatmeal, honeyed cream and raspberries separately for guests to serve themselves. It's more communal that way.

Directions

Toast the oatmeal gently and cool, then soak in the whisky.

Add the honey to the cream then whisk into soft peaks.

Add the whisky soaked oatmeal to the cream, mix softly and serve with the raspberries.

Thanks to Sumayya of pukkapaki for the photographs

To my mind Scottish food is very much defined by the quality of the natural produce rather than a particular flavour or style. Traditionally many dishes would have been cooked in one pot over an open fire but the flavours would have depended on the season, on the area of the country rather than being of a typically ‘Scottish’ flavour. This leaves the contemporary Scottish food landscape as a bit of a blank canvas in which to discover flavour combinations that accentuate the natural larder. During the autumn months there are many wild mushrooms available in the woods and forests up and down the country if you’re lucky enough to know what you’re looking for. Not being a talented forager I tend to stick with dried porcini which are inevitably imported from Italy and I like to pair these with fresh mushrooms from Scotland, I find mini portobello give the best flavour combination with the dried porcini. Add these to fresh garlic, thyme, wild if possible and a good glug of red wine and you have a heavenly combination. All that is left to add is the wonderfully rich flavour of Scotch beef, from Highland or Aberdeen Angus cattle. Slow braising until it is meltingly soft yields the best results from cheaper cuts of meat and brings warmth to an autumn or winter evening.

Beef and mushroom stew

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	4-6
Prep time	30 minutes
Cook time	2 hours, 30 minutes
Total time	3 hours
By author	Graeme Taylor

A warming autumn or winter stew

Ingredients

• 15g Dried porcini mushrooms
• 250ml Boiling water
• 1.5kg Braising steak (diced)
• 10-12 Echallion shallots (halved)
• 4 cloves Garlic (chopped)
• 250g Mini portobello mushrooms (quartered)
• 1 glass Red wine
• 2 sprigs Thyme (large ones)

Note

You could cook this in the oven at 150C for a similar time if you prefer the oven to the hob.

Directions

Rehydrate porcini mushrooms in the boiling water for 30 minutes. Retaining the liquor from the drained mushrooms.

In a heavy bottomed pot brown the beef in a glug of oil. Add in the shallots and garlic and stir through for a minute.

Add all the mushrooms, stir again and then pour in the porcini liquor and wine. Place the largish branches of thyme in the liquor, bring to the boil then cover and reduce to a simmer .

Simmer for 2hrs 30 minutes until the beef is meltingly tender. Serve with crusty bread or mashed potatoes.

Photo credit to Sumayya Jamil

The cuisine of Scotland is steeped in the history of cooking from the natural larder at the people’s disposal. Whether this be kings and queens feasting on venison, duck, beef and salmon; or the servant living on oats and kale the Scots have always used well that which is at their disposal. However running through the food of Scotland are flavours from far-flung lands brought here by friend and foe alike. One such dish is kedgeree. Legend has it that a Scottish regiment brought back curry spices from the Indian sub-continent in the time of the British Raj and this was the result of tinkering with a dish seen there at the time. There is probably an element of truth in this, how much truth probably depends on your desire for casting a wistfully romantic eye to the past.

What is true is that all over the sub-continent you will find a dish with many regional variations of rice, daals and spice, but never fish, called khitchri. With this in mind I decided that I wanted to make a spice blend that would perfectly marry the sweet smokiness of the haddock in kedgeree with an authentic south Asian flavour. Far removed from the generic curry powder of many a kedgeree recipe. Sumayya Jamil of pukkapaki.com gave great assistance guiding me towards cumin, coriander and chilli as a simple spice blend that the haddock would accentuate but not drown in. I also added a little turmeric as I like the colour it gives the dish and opted for Kashmiri chilli, again because of the wonderful colour it gives when cooking and the aroma that it fills the kitchen with.

Kedgeree

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	2
Prep time	5 minutes
Cook time	20 minutes
Total time	25 minutes
By author	Graeme Taylor

Delicious traditional Scottish rice dish which can as easily be served as an evening meal or a warm breakfast.

Ingredients

• 1 Fillet undyed smoked haddock (preferably peat smoked)
• 350ml Cold water
• 1 Onion (finely chopped)
• 1 knob Butter
• 150g Basmati rice
• 2.5 teaspoons Masala
• 2 Eggs

Masala

• 2 teaspoons Cumin seeds
• 2 teaspoons Coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon Ground Kashmiri chilli
• 0.5 teaspoon Turmeric powder

Note

Traditionally hard boiled eggs are added but I prefer to see the yolk of the poached egg run into the smoky goodness below.

Directions

To make the masala grind the cumin and coriander seeds and mix with the chilli and turmeric.

In a pan big enough to lay flat place the haddock, cover with the water, cover the pan and bring to a simmer for 4 minutes. Remove the fish and set aside. Pour the 'stock' into a jug and reserve.

In the same pan add the butter and over a low heat sweat the onion for 3-4 minutes being careful not to brown. Add the masala and cook through for a minute.

Add the rice, stir gently to coat some of the rice with spice and then pour over the liquor. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 15 minutes until the rice is tender and the liquid evaporated.

When there is three minutes cooking time left for the rice poach the two eggs in a pan of salted water.

When the rice is cooked break in the haddock, stir through and serve in warmed bowls with the egg on top.

Robert Burns, though known the world o’er as Scotland’s national poet was born into a poor farming family in Ayrshire rather than the Georgian gentry. Using his wit and intelligence he found himself at many a wealthy table eating the finest of foods. However, as his poetry suggests he preferred and identified with the ‘homely’ fare of the peasant, referring to it in rhyme and song and even elevating the humble haggis, a thrifty peasant pudding to legendary status simply by writing an ode. Many would say more tongue in cheek than reverentially.

Therefore with that in mind it is appropriate that at a Burns supper we would traditionally sit down to a meal with Cock-a-leekie soup to start, followed by the famous pudding, washed down with (though never poured over) a tipple of Burns spirit of choice.

Like with so many traditional Scottish dishes there are countless recipes for Cock-a-leekie. Some would make with a whole chicken, however for me it is a perfect thrifty cooks dish for either a leftover chicken carcass that still has a bit of meat attached, or a few legs salvaged from the more expensive breast meat.

Whichever you choose, a high bone to flesh ratio gives a great rich stock to this warming soup. Definitely hamely fare with the traditional prunes giving a sweetness and rich colour.

Cock a leekie soup

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	4
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	2 hours
Total time	2 hours, 10 minutes
By author	Graeme Taylor - traditional recipe adapted

Warming wholesome Scottish soup. Traditional starter for Burn Supper.

Ingredients

• 3 Whole chicken legs
• 750ml Water
• 1 Onion (chopped)
• 2 Carrots (chopped)
• 2 Leeks (sliced)
• 12 Prunes (sliced)
• 2 sprigs Thyme
• 1 Bay leaf
• Salt
• Pepper

Note

Could also use 6 drumsticks or even a chicken carcass

Directions

At 200C roast the chicken pieces for around 30 minutes then place in a heavy bottomed pot along with any juices which have come out.

Pour over the water until the chicken is covered. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 1 hour to give a stock.

Add in the vegetables, prunes, herbs, a good grinding of pepper and half a teaspoon of salt. Cook until the vegetables are tender, around 20 minutes.

Remove the chicken, take the meat from the bones and stir back into soup. Discard the bones and the herbs, check for seasoning and serve.

Article first published in GreatBritishChefs.com blog

When Scotland signed the Auld Alliance with France in 1295 it was more than just the guarantee of armed support if war was declared that they would receive. A huge amount of French influence was brought to bear on Scottish cuisine and many distinctly Scottish culinary words are actually mispronunciation of French. Therefore étuves, to stew in its own juices became ‘stovies’. Now stovies are possibly just about the most abused term in cooking in Scotland, so much so that not only does everybody that cooks them have a different recipe. A large proportion of people have a completely different outlook on what they are. To me they are a selection of root vegetables, some kind of chopped leftover meat and a cooking liquor of some variety. As I said, very open to interpretation.

When I was young my Mother would stew potatoes, carrots, onion and turnip in gravy and then add the chopped meat at the end to warm through. A few years ago I found a recipe which merely had onions, meat and gravy with sliced potatoes on top, somewhat akin to hotpot, which is then cooked in the oven. I have decided that my favoured method after trying many is basically an amalgamation of both.

For the meat I love to pot roast topside alongside softened onions with thyme, rowan jelly and a wineglass of water. After about 90 minutes for a 1.25kg joint it is nicely medium, lying in a rich gravy of its own juices, of which you can preserve most for stovies the next day.

Stovies

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	4
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 10 minutes
By author	Graeme Taylor

A warming Scottish leftover dish of cooked meat and vegetables.

Ingredients

• 2 Onions (sliced)
• knob Butter
• 500g Leftover roast beef (carved into slices)
• 1 small Yellow turnip (swede) (chopped into 2cm chunks)
• 2 Carrots (sliced)
• 2 Potatoes (thinly spliced)
• 350ml Leftover gravy from roast (or beef stock)
• Salt and pepper

Note

You could also use lamb or mutton. Swap in any root vegetables you like and really make this dish your own.

Directions

In a heavy based casserole suitable for the stove top soften the onions in the butter over a medium heat for around 5 minutes.

When soft layer the turnip, then carrot, then meat and then potatoes on top. Pour over the gravy. This should just about reach the potatoes. Cover with the lid, bring the gravy to the boil and then turn right down to a simmer.

Simmer until all the vegetables are cooked. This should take around 50 minutes as eventually the potatoes will be cooked in the gravy also. Spoon the meat and vegetables into bowl, check gravy seasoning then pour over and serve with crusty bread.

For children of my generation and older growing up in the west of Scotland there must surely have been no meal as ubiquitous and warming as mince and tatties. Whenever I think back to meals in my early years it’s hard to remember any set dishes that we would have had regularly, except this one. It must be no coincidence that Monday and Mince begin with the same letter because they were as inextricably linked in my 1980s childhood as Sooty and Sweep, Torvill and Dean or Del and Rodney. Whether it was my Mum cooking or my Gran when she looked after me there was always a huge pile of mashed potatoes alongside minced beef stewed with vegetables in gravy. Whether the gravy was thick and mixed in with the potatoes or the holy grail of being thin enough to soak up with a ‘piece’ I honestly cannot recall this simple dish ever disappointing.

I have no idea when the dish became popular but undoubtedly it would originally have been made with the cheapest cuts of beef being minced, possibly to reduce cooking time and make the meat go further. It’s such a staple dish in Glasgow that when Tony Roper wrote his play The Steamie about the women in a Glasgow wash house there was a scene about mince and tatties where the women discuss ‘Galloways’ mince passionately, harking back to the day when the name of the butcher was attached as a vital piece of information. Oh for those days of provenance and customer service. In this age of ‘lean steak’ mince the cheaper nature of the meal maybe doesn’t hold sp true, but if you leave it overnight and it doesn’t have any fat on top when you return to heat it up I feel you’re kind of missing the point.

This recipe is as close as can be recalled to that which my Gran used. Again there are many variations that people will make, whether incorporating turnip, peas, beans or a thickening spoon of cornflour to those listed below. My Gran used a spoon of rice to bulk a little and go further, and like the dent in a new still at a distillery which has no measurable value to the final flavour, I leave it out at my peril for fear of altering either flavour or memory.

Mince and tatties

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	2
Prep time	5 minutes
Cook time	30 minutes
Total time	35 minutes
By author	Gran Campbell

A heart warming Scottish stew made with minced cheap cuts of beef.

Ingredients

• 1 Onion (chopped)
• 2 Carrots (chopped)
• 500g Minced beef
• 1 tablespoon Rice (a scant tablespoon of long grain or basmati)
• Water
• 2 teaspoons Gravy salt (you could use stock and reduce the water)
• 500g Potatoes (peeled and chopped)
• knob Butter
• splash Milk
• Salt

Directions

Place the onion, carrot, rice and mince in a pan. Cover with water and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Around 30 minutes. Just before the end of cooking add the gravy salt and stir through.

Meanwhile boil the potatoes in salted water until cooked. This will vary depending on variety but generally 15-20 minutes. Mash with the butter and milk.

Check both for seasoning and serve together.

Five minutes chatting to Iain McKellar of justseaweed.com about the range of products he forages off the Isle of Bute on the beautiful Scottish west coast was enough to have me more than a little excited by the possibilities. Frequently recently I have been wandering along coastal beaches and wondered exactly what to do with the bounty that’s uncovered when low tide beckons and the nature that lurks beneath the waves shows itself. Sometimes like a nervous child on the first night of the school play, hiding itself in the shadows, sometimes, like the great swarthes of seaweed simply basking in the open and soaking up the life giving sun.

The range and taste was both enormous and intriguing. However I went for the very safe option of native dried Dulse, alongside dried Kombu, which is prevalent in Japan and Korea and which I was advised to use as umami stock. With these two wonderful dried ingredients from the sea there could only be one thing to try. My favourite risotto, smoked haddock. There is something wonderful I think about bringing fish to life in what feels like its natural environment.

Smoked haddock risotto with seaweeds

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	2
Prep time	1 hour
Cook time	20 minutes
Total time	1 hour, 20 minutes
By author	Graeme Taylor

A real taste of the sea risotto with loads of sweet, salty flavours.

Ingredients

• 15g Dried kombu (if unavailable just use fish or seafood stock)
• 700ml Boiling water
• 1 Peat smoked haddock fillet
• Olive oil
• 2 cloves Garlic
• 1 Onion (finely chopped)
• 1 Leek (finely chopped)
• 150g Risotto rice (I like nano vialone best)
• 15g Dried dulse (Chopped with scissors into 5mm pieces)
• 100ml White wine
• Salt
• Pepper
• Pecorino

Note

You could substitute the white wine for Noilly Prat, I think the herbiness would work well with the seaweed. You could also leave out the cheese at the end and just season a little more.

Directions

Soak the dried kombu in the boiling water for about an hour. Then remove the seaweed and discard from the 'stock'. Bring the stock to a simmer and add the haddock to poach. When cooked, 3-4 minutes remove and keep the stock warming.

In a heavy based saute pan over a medium heat add the olive oil and soften but don't colour the garlic, onion and leek for around 5 minutes.

Add the rice and the dulse and stir to cover with the oil and cook for 5 more minutes. Stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and burning.

Add the white wine and evaporate, stirring constantly. Then stock ladelwise, stirring constantly to give a creamy texture and a good bit to the rice. You may not need all the stock, you may need to add extra water to the pot, it all depends how you like it. I like a bite to the rice. 15-20 minutes.

When the rice has almost finished cooking, with the last ladel of stock, add the fish and stir it through, you want the fish to be quite chunky, not invisible.

Add a good grating of pecorino and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately with crusty bread.

Oats are the cereal for which Scotland is most famous for good reason. The short summer growing season makes the climate ideal and the Scots of all backgrounds used it as their staple crop, whether in their brose, as oatcakes, for stuffing or as skirlie, the oat was as ubiquitous as many believe the chip to be these days. In fact the Ancient universities of Scotland had a Meal Monday holiday on the second Monday in February when students were allowed to return in their farms to collect more food, such is the importance of the oat. To many a Scot it was his meat.

In these days of 2 minute microwave oats, it’s rare for oatmeal to be soaked overnight and eaten at breakfast, but it is a treat worth waiting for and the effort for the warmth and vitality that thick nutty goodness leaves in you for the day. In Catherine Brown’s landmark book on Scottish food heritage, Broths to Bannocks, she talks at length of the joy of ‘slow ripened Scottish oatmeal, kiln-dried and ground in the traditional way between millstones’. There’s nothing quite like traditional oatmeal for depth of flavour. The recipe below is from that book, it is a hearty, sweet, warming broth of Scottish vegetables with the oatmeal giving it substance. When I first read the recipe I wondered if I was going to get a thin slightly mealy and watery soup lacking in seasoning with no stock. In fact it was rich beyond measure, with flavours of the land, just what a crofter would need after a hard day at the peats.

Orcadian oatmeal soup

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	6-8
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	20 minutes
Total time	30 minutes
By author	Catherine Brown in Broths to Bannocks

A warming Scottish vegetable broth from the isalnd of Orkney

Ingredients

• 50g Butter
• 2 Leeks (finely chopped)
• 4 medium Carrots (grated)
• 1/2 Turnip - the yellow one (grated)
• 50g Fine oatmeal
• 1l Water or vegetable stock
• 1l Milk (approximately, as required)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Parsley

Note

I made this with water only, no stock as the quality and flavour of the produce shows through and gives a freshness.

Directions

Melt the butter in a pot and add the vegetables, the white of the leek only. Sweat without colouring for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the oatmeal, mix and cook for another few minutes.

Add the water or stock and bring slowly to a gentle simmer. Cook until the vegetables are just soft. 5-10 minutes at most.

Add enough milk for a fairly thick consistency then the green leek and heat through. Season and serve garnisehed with parsley if desired.