Food and drink

Roast loin of venison

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Another quick post while I finish typing up last week’s trip to Edinburgh. Today was farmers market day and I had a good reason to head down to Scott Skinner Square anyway (needed a haircut) so took the opportunity to fill our freezer with meat.

One of my favourite stalls at the market is Mortlach Game, a local company that provides cuts of venison, pheasant, pigeon and rabbit. Today I was shopping for venison and picked up a fantastic little joint of venison loin that was going to make a perfect Saturday night tea. Continue reading “Roast loin of venison” →

Recipe

Garlic stuffed mushrooms

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This is another recipe adapted from the excellent Nick Nairn book, New Scottish Cookery. Not that it’s very new any more. It was one of the first cookbooks I bought. My graduation from the simplicity of my other book called something like “400 recipes with only 4 ingredients”.

One of the first recipes I tried from the book is also the one that I’ve made the most. Garlic stuffed mushrooms on toast. It’s pretty easy to see why this was the recipe I went for first. It’s simple but produces great results and is flexible enough to be a dinner party starter (it made an appearance at Christmas one year), a simple main course or a quick dinner for one. Continue reading “Garlic stuffed mushrooms” →

Food and drink

A local classic – Cullen Skink

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I always want to feature more Scottish food, especially recipes from the north-east where I’ve lived my whole life. Cullen is a small village on the Moray coast, north of Aberdeen which is famous for one particular dish. A soup made of fish, milk, tatties and onion – Cullen Skink.

This is a very simple dish to make. You can knock it up in under half an hour if you’re efficient and have everything ready to go. I had a read through my books and found I had at least 5 recipes for this in my small collection. Most of them followed the same general pattern, with the River Cottage Fish book deviating the most and Leith’s Cookery Bible strangely adding tomato into the mix. The recipe below most closely follows Nick Nairn’s from New Scottish Cookery. Continue reading “A local classic – Cullen Skink” →

Recipe

Scallops, pea puree and sweet potato crisps

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Masterchef is about to start a new series so in homage to the show I cooked up a dish that always seems to make an appearance on some contestant’s plate, scallops with pea purée. I could have just served them with peas and mash but I’m quite conscious that I’ve blogged a lot of dishes served with peas and mash recently! Continue reading “Scallops, pea puree and sweet potato crisps” →

Review

An afternoon in Brewdog and The Athenaeum

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Saturday was the semi-final of the Scottish League Cup. Aberdeen played Celtic and lost 4-1, as the penalty which lead to the fourth goal was awarded I made my way out of a packed Irish pub in an Aberdeen side street with my brother, disgusted at the 30 minutes of football we’d just witnessed. Giving up on the game we decided to try to find a better way to spend the afternoon.

I haven’t written about Brewdog despite them being a big local (and national) story over the last couple of years. That’s because I’m not really a big fan of their beer. I love their attitude and they certainly have a fantastic knack for promotion. The Fraserburgh based brewery has been a huge success since they began in 2007 and have done a superb job of getting up the noses of the more established brands and the booze establishment. They seem to have caught the general public’s imagination and are converting a large number of young drinkers into fans of IPA and steering them away from bland, commercial lager. Continue reading “An afternoon in Brewdog and The Athenaeum” →