Scrambled Eggs with Inverawe Smoked Salmon,

Serves 2

For a truly  special morning treat, make this for breakfast or brunch.  You can add more or less smoked salmon depending on how much you can afford, but do not add any more chervil since its delicate aniseed flavour should not overpower the eggs.  Smoked salmon pieces are fine and are also cheaper.

Cold Smoked trout is also good for this dish – or fresh crab meat, and instead of chervil, you could add dill or snipped chives for a change.

Serve on thick wholemeal toast or toasted bagels.  If you make it with crab instead of salmon, it is delicious served on toasted brioche.

Ingredients

6  Medium free-range eggs

2 tablespoons of single cream or top of the milk

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

40g/1 ½ oz butter

About 50g/1 ½ oz Inverawe smoked salmon, chopped roughly

1 heaped tablespoon freshly chopped chervil

Method

Lightly beat together the eggs and cream or top of the milk and season with plenty of salt and pepper.

Slowly melt the butter in a saucepan (or small frying pan) over a low heat, and then add the egg mixture.  Stirring constantly, cook over a low heat until still creamy and soft (up to 5 minutes, depending on your pan).

Remove from the heat to arrest the cooking and stir in the salmon and most of the chervil.  Taste and check the seasoning.  Serve in a pile on hot toast.  Sprinkle with the remaining chervil and serve at once.

Mull of Kintyre Cheese and Inverawe Smoked Ham Bread and Butter Pudding

Ingredients

Serves 6

150-175g/5.5-6oz bread sliced thickly crust left on
70g/2.5oz butter, softened
Dijon mustard
175 g/ 6oz Inverawe Smoked Ham roughly chopped
125g/4.5oz Mull of Kintyre Cheddar Coarsely grated
600ml/1 pint milk
5 large free range eggs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon freshly ground parsley

Mull of Kintyre Cheese is a sharp, powerful Cheddar style cheese that is made the old fashioned way using unpasteurised milk on the mull of Kintyre on Scotlands West Coast
This savoury bread and butter pudding is absolutely wonderful – but don’t even consider slinging in the contents of your fridge to use up ends of things. It relies on good quality ingredients, from bread to ham and cheese. For the bread I like to use sourdough.

Method

Butter a 2 litre/3.5 pint ovenproof dish and preheat the oven to 180c/350f/gas 4.
Spread the bread thickly with the butter. Then thinly with the mustard. Place half the slices in the base of the prepared dish. Top with the ham and half the cheese, then with the remaining bread, buttered-side up.

Whisk together the milk and the eggs and season with salt and pepper. Add the parsley, then slowly pour the mixture over the bread, taking care to soak it all over. Scatter the remaining cheese on top. Leave to soak in for at least 20 minutes.

Put the dish in a bain marie (or a roasting tin filled halfway up the sides with hand hot water). Bake in a preheated oven for 60-70 minutes, or until puffed up and golden brown.

Nettle Soup

Ingredients

Serve 6

250g/9oz young nettles (roughly 1 full supermarket carrier bag)
2 heaped tablespoons freshly grated parmesan
7-8 tablespoons olive oil
600g/ 1lb 5oz potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
1.2 litres/2 pints of chicken or vegetable stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 large free range eggs hard boiled and shelled

When you pick nettles, I need hardly say that you will need rubber gloves and scissors 9 and welly boots unless you have long trousers). Only remove the tops and the upper leaves and do not pick from plants that are in flower. Obviously, pick as far away from the roadside as possible.

And just in case you are wondering, once they are cooked, the sting (formic acid) disappears completely; all you are left with is a wonderfully rich yet sharp flavour not unlike sorrel. Just like Sorrel and Spinach, Nettles cook very quickly and in order to retain their vivid colour, I blanch them shortly after returning home and then puree them. The resulting puree will last in the fridge for 2-3 days which means that you don’t have to finish making the soup immediately. The puree can even be used as a stuffing for pasta such as ravioli or cannelloni, mixed with some ricotta and a little fresh mint.

Method

First put on your rubber gloves again, and remove the leaves from their stalks, discarding the latter. Put the leaves in a large colander and wash them really well, in several changes of water.
Bring a large pan to the boil and, once boiling, drop in all the nettle leaves. When it has  returned to the boil, blanch the nettles for 1 minute, then tip them into the colander and refresh under a cold running tap. Drain really well, squeezing them by hand and then patting them dry on kitchen paper. Place in a food processor. Add the parmesan and enough of the oil to make a thick puree. Put the puree into a bowl and, if necessary, cover and refrigerate for 2- 3 days.
When you are ready to make the soup, place the potatoes in a pan with the onion, celery and stock. Bring to the boil and cook until the vegetables are tender. Then remove from the heat and add the nettle puree. Mix in a blender and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a little extra boiling water if it is too thick.
If you have to reheat, do not boil or the lovely green bright colour will fade. To serve ladle the soup into wide bowls and top each with half a hard boiled egg. Grind over some black pepper and serve.

Traditional Scottish Clootie Dumpling

As part of our mission to bring you all the things we love about Scottish food here is our favourite recipe for traditional Clootie Dumpling. What is that? well its rich fruit pudding which was traditionally made in a cloth called a “cloot” or “clout”  the pudding is boiled inside the cloth and best served hot with lashings of custard , cream or ice cream.

If you don’t have time to make your own clootie dumpling then you can buy one ready to boil or microwave in our scottish sweets and cakes section.

The Recipe

What you need

300g plain flour
150g Beef Suet
200g currants
100g sultanas
150g sugar
grated rind of 1 orange
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
milk to mix

Start of by sifting the flour, baking powder and spices all together, Add in all the other dry ingredients to the mixture and mix well together.

Add just enough of the milk to make a stiff dough.

Dip the pudding cloth into boiling water then drain it and dust with flour. Put the dough mixture into the center of the cloth and tie up leaving room for the pudding to expand. simmer the pudding for 4 hours.

Turn the pudding out from the cloth onto a hot plate

…. Clootie Dumpling .. Done!