Out of bread? I made these quickly tonight while my soup was heating up, and they were delicious with cream cheese spread on them while they were still warm. One of the secrets of good scones is to make them quickly and don’t handle the dough very much.
INGREDIENTS:
225g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
50g butter
50g grated parmesan (or other cheese)
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp mustard
150ml milk
METHOD
Set the oven to heat at 220C
Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour with your finger tips.
Add the grated cheese and mix in well.
Beat the egg and mustard with around 100ml milk, then stir it quickly into the dry ingredients.
As soon as the mixture starts to form a dough, bring it together with your fingers, and turn out onto a floured table. Use your hands to make it around 1.5cm thick. You can cut out round scones with a cutter, but I just cut the dough up into pieces.
Put the scones onto a baking sheet, and bake in the hot oven for 15 minutes. Once cooked, put them on a wire tray to cool. But of course they are best eaten while they are still warm.
I have been given some delicious foraged chanterelles from the mainland, and it is not an ingredient I get too often. I tried this very simple Italian recipe.
INGREDIENTS:
Approx 125g chanterelles, cleaned and sliced
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 clover of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper
approx 250g cooked salad potatoes, chopped
15g butter
METHOD:
Heat the oil in a large pan, and add the garlic and the parsley, and cook gently for a couple of minutes
Turn the heat up a bit and add the sliced chanterelles, and cook for around five minutes. Remove them from the pan using a slotted spoon, and mix in the lemon juice.
Add the butter to the pan, and then add the potatoes. Cook them on a high heat until they are getting crispy, and then return the chanterelles to the pan and season with salt and pepper. Serve once the mushrooms are warmed through.
You could garnish with chive flowers, or chopped parsley.
This year, I have grown some great beetroot, and I made this soup with it. I supplemented the ingredient list with a neep and some carrots purchased from Tagsa gardens. It is really tasty, and I was pleased to find some Polish soured cream in the local shops.
INGREDIENTS:
2 medium onions, sliced
50g butter
2 cloves of garlic
1.8 litres beef stock (or vegetable stock if you want to make a vegetarian version)
1 large beetroot, around 500g, peeled and diced
1 swede/turnip/neep around 500g, peeled and diced
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 large potato, peeled and grated
2 bayleaves
1 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
juice of half a lemon
Soured cream or plain yoghurt, to serve
METHOD:
In a very large pot, melt the butter and cook the onions over a low heat until soft. This will take around ten minutes. Add the garlic for the last couple of minutes of cooking.
Pour in the stock, and raise the heat. Add all of the chopped and grated vegetables, and the herbs, and bring to a simmer, and season with around 1 tsp salt and a good grating of black pepper. Simmer for an hour or so.
Stir in the lemon juice, remove the bayleaves, and adjust the seasoning to taste.
Serve with each bowl containing a spoonful of soured cream or yoghurt.
So delicious. I made this for when I had invited colleagues and friends over, we had a buffet set up with lots of salads, this was the winner. I will be making it again for our community party later in the year. It is a Turkish recipe.
INGREDIENTS:
100g green lentils
300g tomatoes, finely chopped
60g red onion, finely sliced
4 large spring onions, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp pul biber – chilli flakes
60 g walnuts, finely chopped. You could use a food processer, you are aiming for the bits of nut to be about the size of a large lentil.
chopped herbs – could be a mixture of basil, parsley, dill, fennel,
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
Salt and pepper
crisp lettuce leaves, to serve
METHOD:
Cook the lentils, boil them in water until tender but still firm. This takes around 20 minutes. When they are cooked, strain them and rinse them in icy water. Set them to cool while you prepare the other ingredients.
In a large bowl, combine the lentils, tomatoes, onion, spring onion, chilli powder, and walnuts. Mix in the chopped herbs.
In another bowl, mix the pomegranate molasses, tomato puree and iced water to make a sauce, and season with 1/2 tsp salt and grated black pepper.
Mix the sauce into the salad, and serve on a bed of romaine lettuce leaves.
Angelica grows in profusion across North Uist, Benbecula and South Uist. First, rosettes of dark green leaves appear, and then from the centre, around the end of June, great fists of flower buds start fighting their way up above the grass, and then in July, domed panicles of white flowers come out. It is related to Alexanders, and you can candy their stems as well. Other endemic plants in the family, not all edible, include hogweed, and wild carrot, sweet cicely and wild parsnip.
It is Angelica sylvestris that grows wild here, but there are cultivated varieties with a pinkish tinge, and also Angelica archangelica, a much larger cousin. You can read more about the botanical aspects on the Botanical Society of Scotland blog.
This year, I decided I would work out how to make candied angelica. We used to get it in tiny squares and slivers, decorating cup cakes, and it is used as a flavouring in gin. First of all, at the very start of July, when the buds were beginning to burst upwards, I cut the stems while they were still tender. I blanched them, filling the kitchen with the most peculiar aroma. I left them in the boiling water for ten minutes and left them to cool. I reserved the poaching liquid. Once the stems were cool enough to handle, I peeled the outer layer off with a small sharp knife.
At this stage, you could chop finely and add to rhubarb jam, about 50g per kilo of rhubarb.
To make candied angelica. I weighed the peeled angelica, and then added an equal amount of sugar to the poaching water. The ideal proportions would be for each 50g of stem, add 25g sugar, 25g glucose and 75ml water, but we can’t get glucose and I didn’t worry too much about weighing anything. I boiled the sugar and poaching water to a syrup and then added the angelica, and left it to cool. The next day, I removed the angelica, brought the syrup to a boil and then added the angelica again as it cooled. I repeated this every day until the syrup was the consistency of honey. I left the angelica in the syrup for a week at this point, then removed it and let it dry before storing in a sealed jar.
This is definitely more useful as a flavouring than as a sweet snack, the taste is completely unique, slightly bitter, and very herbal. The best thing I did with it was to add it to rhubarb jam after blanching it. It adds a hint of gin to the jam.
An excellent, very simple meal, with bonus stock at the end for adding to soups and stews. I have a lot of kale this year, so look out for a series of kale recipes. This recipe serves 6 to 8 people.
INGREDIENTS:
Around 800g bacon joint or pre-soaked salted ham
1 bayleaf
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice
1 tbsp date syrup or brown sugar
1 level tsp salt (if not using salted ham)
around 500g shredded kale
1kg peeled new potatoes cut into chunks.
METHOD:
Put the ham or bacon joint into a large saucepan, and just about cover with water. Add the bayleaf, peppercorns, cloves, all-spice, date syrup, and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook over a low heat for 1 hour 30 minutes
Add the potatoes and cabbage, and simmer until the potatoes are just cooked
Strain off and reserve the stock
Slice the bacon and serve on a bed of potatoes and kale. You can pour melted butter over the latter.
This is not the most visually appealing jam, but it sets well and tastes delicious.
INGREDIENTS:
1kg chopped rhubarb stems
500g dried figs
600ml water
1.5kg sugar
Juice of 2 large lemons (or one lemon, one orange)
METHOD:
Soak the figs in the water for 48 hours minimum
After 24 hours of soaking the figs, chop the rhubarb, put into the jam pan and cover with the sugar
After another 24 hours. add the lemon juice to the figs and water, and bring to a simmer. Keep a close watch, the mixture can quickly stick. As soon as it is boiling, add to the jam pan, and bring everything to the boil. Cook for 20 minutes, until thick and jammy. Pour into warmed jars.
Angelica is an interesting herb. It is one of the key ingredients in gin, fixing and stabilising the other flavours. It grows wild in Uist, and just about now, at the start of July, the flower stems are emerging. It is a biennial plant, growing in the first year, and flowering in the second year before dying. The flower stem itself is the best bit for preserving, which will affect seed production for the following year, so harvest wisely.
For this recipe, use 50g chopped candied angelica for each kilo of rhubarb. It makes a rhubarb jam flavoured with a hint of gin.
I think that adding the angelica and lemon juice at the start allows the angelica flavour to disperse well into the other ingredients.
INGREDIENTS:
1kg rhubarb
50g angelica, chopped
juice of two lemons
1kg sugar
METHOD:
Chop the rhubarb into 1cm lengths, and finely chop the angelica, and put into the jam pan with the lemon juice, and covered in sugar. Stir well and leave overnight
The next day, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes, until thick. Pour into prepared jars.
The classic jam. For each kilo of rhubarb, I use 50 grams of chopped crystalised ginger. You can also used powdered ginger, and adjust according to taste. If you love ginger, double the amount.
INGREDIENTS:
1kg chopped rhubarb stems
50g chopped crystalised ginger or 1 teaspoon of powdered ginger
1kg sugar
juice of two small lemons
METHOD:
Chop the rhubarb and the ginger into the jam pan, and cover with the sugar. Leave overnight.
The next day, bring to the boil and then add the lemon juice. Simmer for around 20 minutes, until thick.
