Recipes 

Susan's Whisky Sauce

Try this one on the Christmas pudding!

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 pint water
4 teaspoons custard powder
3-4 tablespoons whisky
 
In a small pan melt the butter, syrup and sugar and cook gently until toffee-coloured. Add the water, stirring all the time and bring to the boil. Mix the custard powder to a paste with a little cold water and add to the pan, whisking all the time. Boil for one minute. Remove from the heat and stir in the whisky. 

Sarah Fraser's Cornish Clotted Cream
 
First, catch your cow. After the cow has been milked, strain the fresh milk into a wide earthenware pan and leave to stand, overnight if summertime, or for twenty-four hours in cold weather. Then slowly, and without simmering, raise the temperature of the milk over a low heat until a solid ring starts to form around the edge. Without shaking the pan, very carefully remove it from the heat and leave overnight, or a little longer, in a cool coner of the stone-flagged kitchen. The thick crust of cream can then be skimmed off the surface with a large spoon, and bottled in old, wide-knecked half-pint bottles, or porcelain jars.

Cock-a-leekie

A Scotch dish, a fowl and leek soup, wonderful on winter's nights.

     Ingredients
     1 stewing chicken, trussed
     10 to 12 medium-sized leeks (about 2 lb), trimmed, washed and sliced
     2 quarts beef stock or water
     bouquet garni of 1 whole clove, 1 blade mace, 1 sprig parsley and 6 peppercorns (optional)
     salt
     freshly ground allspice
     12 prunes, stoned

Place the fowl in a large pot with three or four of the leeks and the stock or water. If using water, add the bouquet garni, tied in a piece of cheesecloth. Bring to the boil, and then cook gently for 2 hours or longer, until the fowl is tender, when it should be removed. Clear off all the grease with paper towels.

Leave the soup in the fridge so that the fat from the chicken can be removed the next day. Add the remainder of the leeks cut into  inch lengths. Add salt and allspice to taste. Simmer very gently until leeks are tender. Half an hour before serving, add the prunes. The flesh of the chicken can be cut up and added to the soup before serving it. 

Haggis

Haggis is essentially a large boiled sasusage, filled with oatmeal and meats, usually, but not necessarily, offal. It is delicious, much nicer than most sausages, and no Scots person can understand why others are so wary of its charms.

It is traditionally eaten on Burns Night, January the 25th, with potatoes and parsnips. Delicious!

        Ingredients
        1 sheep's stomach, thoroughly cleaned
        The liver, heart, and lights (lungs) of the sheep
        1 lb Beef suet
        2 large onions
        2 tb salt
        1 ts Freshly ground black pepper
        1/2 ts Cayenne or red pepper
        1/2 ts Allspice
        2 lb Dry oatmeal (the old-fashioned, slow-cooking kind)
        2-3 cups broth (in which the liver, heart and lights were cooked)

What you need: Canning kettle or a large spaghetti pot, 16- to 20 quart size with a lid to fit it; meat grinder; cheesecloth

What to do: If the butcher has not already cut apart and trimmed the heart, liver and lungs, do that first.  It involves cutting the lungs off the windpipe, cutting the heart off the large blood vessels and cutting it open to rinse it, so that it can cook more quickly. The liver, too, has to be freed from the rest. Put them in a 4-quart pot with 2 to 3 cups water, bring to a boil, and simmer for about an hour and a half. Let it all cool, and keep the broth.

Run the liver and heart through the meat grinder. Take the lungs and cut out as much of the gristly part as you easily can, then run them through the grinder, too. Next, put the raw beef suet through the grinder. As you finish grinding each ingredient, put it in the big kettle. Peel, slice and chop the onions, then add them to the meat in the kettle. Add the salt and spices, and mix.

The oatmeal comes next, and while it is customary to toast it, or brown it very lightly in the oven or in a heavy bottomed pan on top of the stove, this is not absolutely necessary. When the oatmeal has been thoroughly mixed with the rest of it, add the 2 cups of the broth left from boiling the meat. See if when you take a handful, it sticks together. If it does, do not add the third cup of broth. If it is still crumbly and will not hold together very well, add the rest of the broth and mix thoroughly. Have the stomach smooth side out and stuff it with the mixture, about three-quarters full. Sew up the openings. Wrap it in cheesecloth, so that when it is cooked you can handle it.

Now, wash out the kettle and bring about 2 gallons of water to a boil in it. Put in the haggis and prick it all over with a skewer so that it does not burst. You will want to do this a couple of times early in the cooking period. Boil the haggis gently for about 4 or 5 hours. If you did not have any cheesecloth for wrapping the haggis, you can use a large clean dishtowel. Work it under with kitchen spoons to make a sling with which you can lift out the haggis in one piece. You will probably want to wear lined rubber gloves to protect your hands from the hot water while you lift it out with the wet cloth. (You put the dish cloth in the pot only after the haggis is done; you do not cook the towel with the haggis as you would the cheesecloth).

Note: Even if the butcher has cleaned the stomach, you will probably want to go over it again. Turn the stomach shaggy side out and rinse. Rub it in a sinkful of cold water. Change the water and repeat as many times as necessary, until the water stays pretty clear and handling it does not produce much sediment as the water drains out of the sink. 

Star Gazzy Pie

This is a traditional Cornish recipe, eaten at Christmas time, in which the fish heads protrude from under the pie crust, so that the fish are gazing at the stars. It is not necessary that the fish heads be eaten, and the pie is delicious. It is especially associated with the Cornish village of Mousehole, where everybody eats star gazzy pie on December 23rd.

                    Ingredients
                    14oz Shortcrust pastry
                    8 Fresh pilchards
                    14oz Boiled potatoes, diced
                    1 Onion, finely chopped
                    4fl.oz. Single cream
                    1 tbsp Freshly chopped parsley
                    1 tbsp Freshly chopped chives
                    Salt and black pepper
                    1 Egg, beaten

                1. Preheat the oven to 400F; gas mark 6.

                2. Roll out 2/3rds of the pastry and use to line a pie plate.

                3. Scale and gut the the pilchards, removing the tails and fins, but not the heads. Wash well under cold running water.

                4.  Arrange the fish on the pastry like the spokes of a wheel, making sure the heads are poking over the sides.

                5. Place the potato, onions, cream, parsley and chives in a mixing bowl. Season with salt and pepper, and mix well.

                6. Arrange the potato mixture between the fish in the pie and in the centre, leaving the heads of the fish exposed.

                7. Brush the rim of the pastry with a little beaten egg, then roll out the remaining pastry and place on the top of the .               potatoes. Press the edges down firmly between the fish to seal, still leaving the heads exposed.

                8. Brush the top of the pie with beaten egg, then bake for 35 minutes until crisp and golden. Serve immediately. 

Grandma's Brown Sugar Cookies

Here is a recipe sent in by Baby Janet:
 
Step One
In a large bowl, cream together:
2 cups dark brown sugar (packed) (or 1-16oz box)
1 cup butter or margarine or shortening (your choice)
(if butter is hard, soften in microwave 15 – 20 sec.)

Step Two
In a medium bowl, whisk together:
4 cups flour, sifted
1 tsp. each nutmeg, salt, baking powder

Step Three
2 eggs in a cup, fill to 1 cup mark with milk
whisk together in a small bowl with:
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Add contents of small & medium bowls to the large bowl until all ingredients are combined.

Mix in 1 – 2 cups walnuts chopped finely, and from 2/3 to a full bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Drop by teaspoonful on lightly greased cookie sheets.

Bake in preheated 325F oven for 10 – 15 minutes, rotating sheets top to bottom, left to right, at 7 minutes.

When you see tan/brown at the bottom, they are done.

Makes 7 to 8 dozen.  Medium soft at first, they harden over time and make great dunkers.

Baby Janet writes,

'This recipe is from my favorite cookies as a boy.  The very kind and generous lady who made these also made pies from scratch on an old pot-bellied stove.  She was always a generous and kind hostess.  May you also experience the love and kindness she shared with me, as you share this bit of her legacy'.

Return to Table of Contents