Cullen Skink!
I did a post about burgers which was basically a recipe for my all time epic friend and climbing partner Roy Dexter. The whole thing was about being obsessed with food and how people quite rightly think it's mad but also like a decent meal so mostly put up with it.
The story surrounding this happened over one of the most fantastic weekends of mountaineering we ever had so for me it deserves a high honor and remains so in my memory.
Cullen Skink is made like this. I wonder if Roy remembers it.
Ingredients are all shown in this picture but for convenience they are:
1 x big piece of Smoked Haddock. We all like undyed fish because Annato is an E-number and therefore must be evil but actually dyed smoked fish tastes nicer in most cases. Here the pale colour is what you want so only use the orange dyed version if you have to or if you are hungry. If you are hungry then any dyed smoked fish will work very well. Things like kippers or herrings are good substitutes.
1 x whole smoked haddock fillet. About 300-350g ish or more is fine
Cooking onions
Parsley chopped finely
Nice waxy potatoes peeled and finely sliced or diced. This means new potatoes, salad potatoes (Charlottes or pink fir apple etc) but nothing like a king edwards or any baking potato. Once again forget all this if you're hungry.
More fish if you can. I used frozen prawns - raw or cooked will do.
Butter
Milk or single cream or half-and-half of each.
Start by rinsing the fish to make sure there are no loose scales or unnecessarily scummy bits. Pat it dry with kitchen towel and cut into pieces that will fit in your saucepan. Cover with the milk, add a bay leaf if you are being fancy and carefully bring to the boil and then simmer.
This has an awful tendency to boil over which will ruin your day as boiled-over milk is a complete pain to clean off your cooker. Pay attention. For about ten minutes, until poking the fish with a knife lifts nice big flakes away from the skin. It isn't crucial that it's cooked through yet because there is more cooking coming later. This is just to flavour the milk and get the skin off.
Drain the fish through a sieve or colander into a kitchen jug and reserve the tasty milk.
Flake all the fish away from the skin, look out for bones to discard and set aside.
In a clean pan (or the same one rinsed out), sweat the onions until translucent and add the potatoes. Add the fishy cooking milk and more water if needed to cover the potatoes. Carefully bring to the boil and immediately reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes. Be careful it doesn't boil over as above.
The potatoes should be just cooked and not breaking down.
Return the Haddock to heat through with the prawns or other fish. When properly hot through add the cream if you're using it, parsley and a grind of salt and pepper.
And that is it. Raise a glass of Whisky in tribute to Knoydart, Haddock, Roy and Nicky and being in the hills.
The story surrounding this happened over one of the most fantastic weekends of mountaineering we ever had so for me it deserves a high honor and remains so in my memory.
Cullen Skink is made like this. I wonder if Roy remembers it.
 |
| You start here. At the Haddock shop. You also need Milk (and Whisky - Laphroaig is my favourite) |
Ingredients are all shown in this picture but for convenience they are:
1 x big piece of Smoked Haddock. We all like undyed fish because Annato is an E-number and therefore must be evil but actually dyed smoked fish tastes nicer in most cases. Here the pale colour is what you want so only use the orange dyed version if you have to or if you are hungry. If you are hungry then any dyed smoked fish will work very well. Things like kippers or herrings are good substitutes.
1 x whole smoked haddock fillet. About 300-350g ish or more is fine
Cooking onions
Parsley chopped finely
Nice waxy potatoes peeled and finely sliced or diced. This means new potatoes, salad potatoes (Charlottes or pink fir apple etc) but nothing like a king edwards or any baking potato. Once again forget all this if you're hungry.
More fish if you can. I used frozen prawns - raw or cooked will do.
Butter
Milk or single cream or half-and-half of each.
Start by rinsing the fish to make sure there are no loose scales or unnecessarily scummy bits. Pat it dry with kitchen towel and cut into pieces that will fit in your saucepan. Cover with the milk, add a bay leaf if you are being fancy and carefully bring to the boil and then simmer.
This has an awful tendency to boil over which will ruin your day as boiled-over milk is a complete pain to clean off your cooker. Pay attention. For about ten minutes, until poking the fish with a knife lifts nice big flakes away from the skin. It isn't crucial that it's cooked through yet because there is more cooking coming later. This is just to flavour the milk and get the skin off.
Drain the fish through a sieve or colander into a kitchen jug and reserve the tasty milk.
Flake all the fish away from the skin, look out for bones to discard and set aside.
In a clean pan (or the same one rinsed out), sweat the onions until translucent and add the potatoes. Add the fishy cooking milk and more water if needed to cover the potatoes. Carefully bring to the boil and immediately reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes. Be careful it doesn't boil over as above.
The potatoes should be just cooked and not breaking down.
Return the Haddock to heat through with the prawns or other fish. When properly hot through add the cream if you're using it, parsley and a grind of salt and pepper.
And that is it. Raise a glass of Whisky in tribute to Knoydart, Haddock, Roy and Nicky and being in the hills.
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| Onion and potato base |
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| Poach! |
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| Skin |
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| All hot and cooked through? Add parsley and Go! |
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| I bet you don't remember these old Denby dishes! |
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| Nigel Slater's version |
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| Knoydart Pier April 2007 |
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