Some Recipes from the UK
(thomas;2023-Nov-20)
You'll find below some of our standard recipes, often cooked and well proven.
| Ballycotton Fish Pie | Scottish Oatcakes |
Ballycotton Fish Pie, simple version
This is my simplified version of an Irish recipe called Ballycotton Fish Pie. Ballycotton is a small fishing village in East Cork and used to be a sleepy place. This changed for a while in 1995 when Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp and crew loads of movie men descended upon the place to make a film called Deep Rapture. The film project ran aground amidst money problems but the picturesque village had been "discovered" by the "big world". Its fame spread far and wide and so did the fame of this recipe.
My version is slightly simpler than the original (it doesn't include mussels, for example, because I am not sure that mussels go well with the fish) but it doesn't taste substantially different, I think. The ingredients are for four to six persons.
- 0.5 l milk
- two or three bay leaves
- a sprig or two (or even three:-)) of thyme
- two or three carrots, thinly sliced
- two onions, finely chopped
- freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste
- 1.5 kg potatoes (for mashed potatoes)
- 75 gr butter
- 20 gr fresh chives
- about 1 to 1.2 kg of fresh fish filet (salmon, haddock, cod or a mixture of whatever is at hand; I normally use salmon)
- 200 gr of smoked haddock (only if you like the taste)
Boil the peeled potatoes as you would for mashed potatoes. In the meantime put the bay leaves, the thyme, the finely sliced carrots, the chopped onions and the freshly ground black pepper into the milk and heat carefully. Let the mixture simmer for a few minutes and then put aside.
Cut the fish filets into long, thin pieces (make sure any bones and skin are removed) and put them in a large enough ceramic pan so that they form a nice layer.
Once the potatoes are soft, mash them thoroughly, put the butter and the chives in and pour the warm milk/onion/herb mixture over the mash (remove the bay leaves and the sprigs of thyme before you do so). Mix the whole until you get a smooth mash. Salt and pepper to taste and re-heat, so that the mixture is hot.
Top the fish with the hot mash and put the pan into the pre-heated oven (200 C). Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180 C and bake for another 25 minutes or until you get a nice golden-brown crust. Enjoy.
Scottish Oatcakes
Oat? Yes, why not? The Scots like all things oaty, or so I've been told. And among the many things I discovered upon landing on the shores of this beautiful island (ain't that poetic?) were Scottish oatcakes. These are small, round, not very crispy biscuits, made from oatmeal. They taste very hearty and have a nice, rough texture: I immediately took to crunching a few with my Sunday tea. (Crikey, I turn more British by the day…)
Well, while in La Baule after Christmas, I stumbled across a book with Scottish recipes (it's amazing what you can find in these bookshops). I can never say "no" to this sort of book and so it duly found its way to our kitchen. And guess what, one of the recipes is for Scottish oatcakes! I tried it, of course, after buying the necessary oat meals and brans. And it's very good! Indeed, my oatcakes are much more crunchy and rougher than the commercial variety (which may have to do with the fact that I baked them with ~210C and not, as the recipe suggested, with 180C). And they taste much better (no, really, they do!).
Without further ado, here's the slightly adapted recipe:
- 250 gr oatmeal, preferably not too fine (if you can find it)
- 150 gr oats (plain oats for breakfast will do fine)
- 50 gr bran (that wasn't in the original recipe)
- 150 ml sunflower oil (I used olive oil)
- 150 ml warm water
- salt to taste (I used three heaped tea spoons which made the oatcaes taste rather salty)
- a small pack of baking power (though I skipped that)
Mix and knead all ingredients vigourosly until you get a nice dough. (If this turns out to be a bit gluey, a small amount of fine wheat flour will help.) Put the dough on a Teflon-covered baking sheet (or similar) and (try to) get it into a square shape. I use a fork first to spread the dough and then the hands. The thickness should be around 4 to 5 millimeters. Carefully (eg with the backside of a knife) cut the dough into diamonds of around 5 by 5 cm and separate them a little. Put the whole into a pre-heated oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes (the recipes says 180C, but I think the oats can stand a slightly rougher treatment). When they are beginning to turn brown on the edges, get them out, let them cool and then put into an airtight container. As with many baked things, they taste better a day or two later.
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$updated from: Background.htxt Mon 04 Mar 2024 16:04:47 trvl2 (By Vero and Thomas Lauer)$