Friday, February 4, 2011

Neep? Not a bird sound...

There’s one problem with me and this food blog: trying to figure out how much of something I threw in to make a delicious dish.

This habit trickles down from my grandma who knows what she makes so well she just doesn’t think about it. When I go to her to learn one of her recipes, she tries her hardest to measure things out – or I try my hardest to guess how much she dumped in – and it always seems to work out because I’m going from making it to paper and from paper right to making it. I can tweak it as I remember it. While I blog though, I go from making it to paper and then it goes to YOU to making it (hopefully).

So, I guess the point is that this following recipe may not necessarily be “accurate.” I want you, the maker, to add and subtract until it tastes great to you.

Sweet and Salty Neeps and Tatties

3 medium potatoes (whole are better because the skin hold in the starch, but my saucepan is tiny so I cut them up into chunks)

A good sized chunk of a swede (probably about ½ to ¾ the amount of potatoes), cut into smaller chunks than the potato chunks

Rashers (I got a gammon joint that I just cubed)

½ a medium onion, sliced

A clove or two of garlic

3 tbs (to your discretion) Goats butter or regular butter is fine

Goats cheese. I can’t even guess at a measurement here. Just “some” enough for you to be able to taste it.

  1. Boil the swede and the potatoes
  2. Meanwhile, cook the bacon on a low heat.
  3. When the bacon is near to being done, throw in the sliced onion and the garlic and cook them just until they are a bit soft.
  4. When the potatoes and swede are done, mash them with the butter and cheese
  5. Stir in the bacon and onion mixture.

This recipe serves about two people (I cook for myself, so they’re all small batches).

I love this recipe because it’s really close to Colcannon – it actually was meant to be a kind of offshoot of it, but I couldn’t get cabbage this week – but it has a sweet side to it because of the swede and the cheese.

Also, living in Scotland and surfing through Scottish recipes gives me different words for things – a neep is a swede and tattie is a potato. It just makes things more fun!

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