ORKNEY ISLANDS
BERE-MEAL PORRIDGE
This is a favourite porridge dish both in the Orkneys and Shetlands.
BROONIE
Ingredients : -
6 ounces flour; 6 ounces oatmeal; 2 ounces butter;
1 tablespoonful treacle; 1 egg; 1 teaspoonful ground ginger; 3 ounces brown sugar; a little bi-carbonate of soda;
buttermilk to mix.
Mix the flour and oatmeal together and rub in the butter. Add the sugar, ginger and bicarbonate of soda. Melt the treacle and add with the beaten egg and enough buttermilk to make a dough that will drop from the spoon. Mix well and place in a buttered baking tin. Bake in a moderate oven for 1 hour 30 minutes .
BURSTON
2 ounces oatmeal; 3 ounces; bere meal; buttermilk to
serve.
Drop the bere meal on a hot girdle and the oatmeal over it until it
is toasted. Serve in a dish with buttermilk to mix.
CLAPSHOT
Ingredients : -
2 lbs potatoes; 2 lbs turnips; a few chopped chives a little dripping; salt and pepper to taste.
Boil the potatoes and the turnips, mash them both and mix together
with the chives and salt and pepper. Melt the dripping in a large saucepan and heat the vegetables well over a
low flame. Serve hot.
CROFTER'S PLUM PUDDING
Ingredients : -
1 lb. flour; 8 ounces suet; 8 ounces sugar; 8 ounces
raisins; 1 egg; a little bi-carbonate of soda; ale to mix
Rub the suet into the flour and add the raisins and sugar. Beat the
egg and add with sufficient ale to make a soft dough, then the bi-carbonate of soda dissolved in ale. Place in
a greased pudding basin, cover with a cloth and tie up. Boil for 3 hours. This dish does not require any spices
as the sic gives it a full rich flavour. Breadcrumbs can be used instead of half the amount of flour.
SEA TANGLE
Sea tangle is a seaweed which children eat raw. In Barn the blade is cut from the stalk and roasted on both sides,
It is then put on buttered barley bannocks.
SNODDIES
A snoddy is a thick bannock baked in hot ashes. ( bannock )
SOUR SKONS
Ingredients : -
8 ounces oatmeal; 8 ounces flour; buttermilk to
mix; a little sugar; a little bi-carbonate of soda; a little salt; a few caraway seeds.
Soak the oatmeal in buttermilk for 2 days, then beat up with the flour,
mixed with the bi-carbonate of soda, add the sugar, salt and caraway seeds. Mix well and roll out thinly on a board.
Place on a girdle and bake until lightly browned on both sides. Serve hot or cold with butter.
SOWEN CAKES OR SCONES (
Also spelt Sowan Gaelic: Sughan )
Ingredients : -
1 lb. flour; 1 teaspoonful sugar; 1 teaspoonful bi-carbonate
of soda; sowens to mix ( see below); a few caraway seeds if liked; a little salt; a little suet.
Mix the flour with the sugar, bi-carbonate of soda, caraway seeds
and salt and make into a thinnish batter with the sowens. Mix well and drop spoonfuls of it on a hot girdle rubbed
over with a little suet and cook on both sides, turning them with a knife. Serve hot with butter.
Sowens: These are made from
sids, the inner husks of oats which are left to stand in twice their bulk of warm water for about 4 days until
they are quite sour. Then strain the husks and squeeze all the goodness from them. They are then thrown away. Leave
the liquid to stand for a day or two until the sediment has dropped to the bottom. The sediment is called sowens,
the liquid swats. Use a little of each. The sowens can be eaten by themselves by boiling them for 10 minutes with
some of the swats and salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a little milk. The bowl the sids are put in with water
is called a sowen bowie.
WHALE STEAK
Soak the meat in salt water for some hours, to lessen the fishy flavour. Then beat the meat, rub a little salt,
pepper and garlic into it and either grill or fry as desired.
BERE-MEAL PORRIDGE -
This is a favourite porridge dish both in the Orkneys and Shetlands.
HAGGAMUGGI
This is one of the many Shetland fish liver dishes. A fish stomach is filled with chopped livers, air bladders
(sonds) and then steamed in a double boiler for about 30 minutes .
KRAMPUS
Ingredients : -
Sillock livers ( sillock are young coal-fish ( saithe
) at a certain stage of their first year - a variety of cod ) ; butrston ; a little fat.
Melt the livers in the fat and add the burston. Serve hot.
KROPPEN
Ingredients : -
Fish liver; bere meal ; salt and pepper to taste; a
little bay leaf; a few mixed herbs; 1 fish head.
Mix the liver with the meal and other ingredients and stuff the head
with them. Place in a double saucepan and steam for about 45 minutes according to the size of the head.
KRUS (or Liver-Krus )
Ingredients : -
4 ounces oatmeal; ½ ( half ) a pint of water; a
little salt; 1 or 2 fish livers.
Make the oatmeal, water and salt into a dough and form into the shape
of a cruse or small bowl. Place the livers inside and cook over the hearth.
LIVER FLAKKI
Ingredients : -
2 piltiks (windblown fish - haddock, whiting or
sillock ) ; fish livers.
The fish is cleaned and rubbed with salt and hung up to dry by the
holes in the eye-sockets in a dry airy place for a day. Then the livers are placed between the two fish and it
is cooked over the hearth.
MUGILDENS
This is made with sillock or piltiks. They are cooked over the hearth
with their livers inside them.
PRAM
The Shetland and Highland name for a variety of porridge, also known as Fuarag and Cream Crowdie.
SANGSTER
A bannock or brum made with sillock livers and bere-burston.
TIVLACH
This is a variety of bread made entirely with oatmeal.
