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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Burns Supper: Scotch Broth, Bannock, Vegetarian Haggis, Clapshot

veggie haggis, all tied up and ready to cook
No one seemed to know who Burns was, and January is always a good time for random events to distract you from the dark days, so I decided it could be funny to host a Burns Supper. Obviously I am not authentic: I grew up in East Lothian but my parents are English and I never picked up an accent.

Oh, and the small matter of vegetarianism - I have never tasted real haggis. But still, I thought it might be funny.


Scotch Broth

I made this once before when S brought home Scotch Broth mix from Lidl, then decided he didn't like it very much...  Thought it was worth another try.  I adapted this recipe.

250g/8oz carrots, peeled, diced
250g/8oz turnips, diced (couldn't find turnips, used parsnips instead)
2 onions, peeled, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 leek, white part only, sliced
75-125g/3-4oz pearl barley
125g/4oz dried peas, soaked in water for 4-5 hours, drained (used yellow split peas instead, poured boiling water over and left for about 2 hours)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2.3litres/4 pints veg stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat all of the ingredients in a large saucepan until boiling.  Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 2-3 hours, until the peas and pearl barley are soft (nearer 2 is better I think).  Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serve with pieces of bannock.


Bannock

Was daydreaming about days spent on Orkney, and how much I like bere bannocks.  No chance of finding beremeal, but I did have pearl barley...  I liked this authentically Orcadian-sounding recipe.

8 oz pearl barley, ground into meal with my spice grinder
8 oz plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
water (about 100ml), to make a soft dough

Mix the flours, salt and baking powder in a bowl.  Working quickly, add the water and mix to make a soft dough.  Divide into two, and roll out (use a rolling pin) into a circle about 1/2 inch thick.

Heat a girdle or heavy frying pan over a medium-high heat.  Put one round onto it.  Cook about 5 min on one side, then turn over and cook about 5 min on the other side.  Allow to cool a bit, then cut up, before eating.


Vegetarian (/vegan) haggis

I wanted to make a haggis-shaped haggis - felt like the ceremony of having a big fat thingy to cut open was a big part of it.  Wasn't sure what could be used as casing instead of a sheep's stomach, then stumbled upon this recipe and I had an answer: yuba (beancurd sheet).  I found some frozen in Super 88.  I mainly referred to that recipe and to this one from the Guardian, adapting it a little to my own thoughts on how a veg haggis should taste.

1 1/2 tbsp fake butter
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup chopped mushrooms
good pinch cayenne pepper
~1/2 tsp ground allspice
~1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
3 carrots, peeled and grated
3/4 cup red lentils
~500 ml veg stock
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped rosemary leaves
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tbsp chopped sage leaves
1 1/2 cups cooked red kidney beans, mushed up with a fork 
1 cup pinhead oatmeal or steelcut oats (I hoped the latter would be the same as the former, they weren't, but they were what I had so I used them anyway and it was fine)
salt+pepper
optional splash of whisky

2 large circular sheets of yuba (beancurd sheet)
kitchen string

Heat the oil and butter in a large, lidded saucepan.  Add the onions and garlic and sweat, covered, until soft.  Add the mushrooms and cook until browned and wet.  Add the spices and cook for a few more minutes.  Add the carrot, lentils, vinegar, soy sauce and stock (enough stock to just cover the other stuff).  Simmer until the lentils are cooked (about 15 min).  Add the mashed kidney beans, oatmeal, rosemary, thyme and half the parsley.  Cook until the oatmeal has softened and puffed up, and most of the liquid has been absorbed (about 15-20 min).  Add the chopped sage and the rest of the parsley  (and whisky if using) just before the end.  Taste to check seasoning - add salt and pepper, and more vinegar or soy sauce if it needs it.

Allow the mixture to cool completely, then divide in two and shape the mixture (which should be thick and malleable) into haggis shapes.  Open out one sheet of yuba on a board, then place one of the blobs of haggis mixture in the middle.  Roll it up into a sausage shape, then twist around the ends (in the style of a boiled sweet wrapper), and secure with string.  Trim the ends to give a neater, more haggis like appearance (see picture).  Repeat with the other yuba sheet and the other half of the haggis mixture.

Lightly oil the inside of a lidded baking dish.  Heat the oven to 350F.  Put the haggises inside the baking dish, put the lid on, and put them in the oven for about 30 min (really just to heat through).

Serve piping hot, with ceremonial address to the haggis, and clapshot.


Clapshot

5 large tatties (potatoes), peeled
equivalent volume of neeps (= turnip in Scotland, swede in England, rutabaga in America), peeled and chopped into large chunks (couldn't find turnip so used butternut squash instead)
salt+pepper
nutmeg
fake butter
fake milk
1 1/2 spring onions, finely chopped (or chives, if you have)

Put the potatoes in a pan of salted water and bring to the boil.  Boil until they are easily pierced with a fork (~20 min).  Do the same with the turnip / squash - I did them in a separate pan as I suspected the cooking times were different, with practice could do them together.  When done, put in the same pan and mash, adding butter, milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg to give the desired consistency and taste.  Finally, add the spring onions, and reheat gently.


Everything was eaten!  So I guess it must have tasted OK (I think it did: I was especially pleased with the haggis - it looked the part and was tasty).  I hope there was enough food...  I was thinking of making ginger shortbread too, but S decided to make deep-fried Mars bars (Milky Ways in American), so I thought that would be enough.  He also deep fried kit kats, snickers and, towards the end of the night, shortbread and bannock, on the balcony using our Belgian friend Ward's deep fat fryer (originally bought for making perfect Belgian fries - you can't buy them anywhere here, W says, and it's a precise process involving frying at two different temperatures consecutively).  And we had plenty of whisky, including a nice bottle of single malt that H+O brought.  Perhaps new food experiences, for a cross section of the great people we've met over these last few years: Hannah, Orion, Angela, Brian, Alvin, Carly, Jason, Anna, Remy, Nick, Nate, Meghan, Greg.  Now I can feel myself start to think about pancake day...
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