An Adventure in Cooking: Scottish Food

Hello! I mentioned in the last post about something my roommates and I do call Friday Night Dinners, where I prepare a themed dinner to go with a movie that one of us picked. Last weekend the chosen movie was Braveheart, so of course I went with Scottish food! After some research I decided on Cullen Skink with Scottish Baps, and Minced Meat with Mashed Potatoes

UPDATE: Do you guys want the recipes I used to make these? I didn't think about posting them at first since they're modification of recipes you can find online and I wasn't sure anybody would be interested, but let me know if you want them! Just post a comment or email me at whyst3d [at] gmail [dot] com =) 

I love, love soup with bread. I don't think soup should ever be without bread. I even have a slice of bread with my ramen! =)

I really do not like the taste of onions. I try not to use the word "hate", but if I were to use it, the taste of onions would be one of the first place I would apply the term. Luckily when you cook it into soup (which I feel like almost every recipe requires it), you can't taste the onions anymore! Plus I always use red onions when I can, and the pretty colors while they cook almost makes up for the horrible effect they have on my eyes while I'm chopping them up.

I really love bread. I could probably survive on it alone! Even so, these Scottish Baps were exceptionally good! I'm not a huge fan of the flour dusting on top though (or maybe I just put way too much?). Next time I'll probably omit that step.

Traditional Cullen Skink is suppose to be made with smoked haddock, but could be substituted for other types of smoked white fish if you can't get your hands on haddock. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any smoked white fish at all! I ended up using smoked salmon. The soup was still really good, but I would love to try the "real" Cullen Skink soup someday! Also, Cullen Skink is one of the most awesome soup names, don't you think?

The Cullen Skink with Scottish Baps was enough of a meal for me, but I have a meat-eater that I thought would need a bit more food/variety. Originally I was going to make Scottish Pie, which is minced meat pie, but realized too late that I had tossed out my pie pans a little while back. It all worked out though! A little more research showed that a popular Scottish dish is minced meat (minus the pie) with mashed potatoes. I had some potatoes lying around, so I didn't even have to run out for more supplies =)

I hope you enjoyed checking out the pictures from my Scottish food adventure! I had so much fun learning about and cooking them! And now I'll end things on this note: FREEEEEEEEEEEDOM!