National Recipes

Ok here's the idea- celebrate your countries best, worst or most unusual foods and meals.
Anything you like so long as its from your country (for those of you who no longer live in your place of birth you can pick foods from your adopted country or your home one).

So here's some Scottish ones.

Cloutie Dumpling


Ingredients:
4 oz shredded suet or margarine (marge makes a lighter dumpling)
8 oz (2½ cups) flour
4 oz oatmeal
3 oz sugar
Rounded teaspoon baking powder
8 oz mixed currants/sultanas/chopped raisins
One or 1½ teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and mixed spice
One teaspoon golden syrup (light corn syrup is the closest in N America)
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 tablespoons buttermilk

Method:
Sift the flour and rub in the fat (suet or margarine) in a large mixing bowl. Add all the other dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon. Make a well in the centre and add the syrup and eggs and mix well. Add enough buttermilk to make a soft but firm batter.
At Christmas, cooks often wrapped small coins (in the old days a silver three-penny piece was popular) in greaseproof paper and placed them in the dumpling. If you do add coins, warn those eating the dumpling later so as to avoid broken teeth!
You now have a choice of container. The traditional way was with a cloth. Dip it first in boiling water and flour it well before adding the mixture. Tie the top, making sure there is enough room for expansion. Place a saucer or plate in the bottom of a saucepan and stand the dumpling in the cloth on top. Cover with boiling water and cook for 2½ to 3 hours.
Alternatively, you can use an 8-cup basin or pudding steamer which has been lightly greased with melted butter. Allow a one inch space at the top (even if this means throwing away some of the mixture - you need the saoce for expansion). Cover the steamer or basin with a greased sheet of foil and pour boiling water into the steamer until it comes two-thirds up the side. Boil for 3 hours.
Turn out the dumpling and either serve hot with custard or cold with cream.


Whisky and Chocolate Crunch


What a deadly combination - whisky and chocolate! Who could resist? In the ingredients, chocolate digestive biscuits are known as Chocolate Graham Crackers in North America.

Ingredients:
6 oz chocolate digestive biscuits (Graham Crackers)
1 pint whipped cream
3 tablespoons whisky (vary to suit your taste)
1 oz caster sugar (granulated sugar)
2 egg whites
2 drops vanilla essence (extract)
1 oz toasted split almonds
Grated chocolate for decoration

Method
Finely crush the chocolate digestive biscuits and spread equally in the bottom of six sundae dishes. Whip together the cream, whisky, sugar and vanilla until stiff. Separately, whip the egg whites until they are also stiff and then fold into the cream mixture. Spoon equal quantities into the dishes over the biscuits. Chill and finally decorate with the toasted almonds and grated chocolate.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

This is a popular dessert in Scotland amongst people who have a sweet tooth and don't mind a few extra calories.

Ingredients:
2 oz (60g or ½ stick) soft margarine
1½ oz (50g or generous one third stick) butter
7 oz (200g or one cup) white sugar
8 oz (250g or two cups) plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 egg whisked
6 oz (185g or 1½ cups) stoned dates
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2½ oz (65g or one third cup) light brown sugar
2 tablespoons double cream
½ pint (250ml) boiling water

Method:
Cream together the margarine and sugar. Sift together the flour and baking powder. Beat the whisked egg into a creamed mixture with a little of the flour and baking powder and continue beating for about a minute before adding the rest of the flour/baking powder.
Chop the dates and flour lightly. Pour the boiling water over the dates and mix in the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda in US) and add the date mixture to the batter and mix well.
Place in a buttered tin (or one lined with baking parchment) and bake for 40 minutes at 350F (175C or Gas Mark 4).
When the pudding is cooked, heat the brown sugar, butter and cream and simmer gently for 3 minutes. Pour over the pudding and place under a grill until it starts to bubble. Then serve.

Shortbread


There are as many recipes for shortbread as sand on the seashore. While it is particularly associated with bringing in the New Year it is certainly popular in Scotland throughout the year.

Ingredients:
6oz Plain flour
4oz Soft butter
2oz caster (granulated) sugar
1 oz cornflour (cornstarch)

Method:
Mix the butter and sugar together (preferably with a wooden spoon) until it is pale and creamy. Sieve both the flour and the cornflour into the bowl and mix well. Put a small amount of flour on your working surface and place the dough on this. Shake a little flour on top and roll out about quarter inch thick. Prick with a fork and cut into rounds with a cutter or, if you want one large shortbread round, pinch the edges with thumb and finger all round.

Use a palette knife to lift the shortbread onto an oiled baking tray and bake for 25 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 325F/170C/Gas Mark 3. If the biscuits are ready, they will be pale brown and crisp; if not, return to the oven for 5 or 10 minutes. Shake a small amount of caster/granulated sugar on the top of the shortbread immediately after they have been removed from the oven. Use a palette knife to move them to a cooling rack and store in an airtight tin once they are cold.


Haggis


Ingredients:
Set of sheep's heart, lungs and liver (cleaned by a butcher)
One beef bung
3 cups finely chopped suet
One cup medium ground oatmeal
Two medium onions, finely chopped
One cup beef stock
One teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
One teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon mace

Method:
Trim off any excess fat and sinew from the sheep's intestine and, if present, discard the windpipe. Place in a large pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for an hour or possibly longer to ensure that they are all tender. Drain and cool.

Some chefs toast the oatmeal in an oven until it is thoroughly dried out (but not browned or burnt!)

Finely chop the meat and combine in a large bowl with the suet, oatmeal, finely chopped onions, beef stock, salt, pepper, nutmeg and mace. Make sure the ingredients are mixed well. Stuff the meat and spices mixture into the beef bung which should be over half full. Then press out the air and tie the open ends tightly with string. Make sure that you leave room for the mixture to expand or else it may burst while cooking. If it looks as though it may do that, prick with a sharp needle to reduce the pressure.

Place in a pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil and immediately reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for three hours. Avoid boiling vigorously to avoid bursting the skin.

Serve hot with "champit tatties and bashit neeps" (mashed/creamed potato and turnip/swede). For added flavour, you can add some nutmeg to the potatoes and allspice to the turnip/swede. Some people like to pour a little whisky over their haggis - Drambuie is even better! Don't go overboard on this or you'll make the hggis cold.

You just had to include the haggis, didn't you? I feel the whole thing was orchestrated to lull the reader into a sense of safety before you struck.

To me the most impressive part was how you refrained from comment on it.

Okay, the best stadium food in the world was invented in Texas.



"Frito Pie"

1 small bag fritos
hot chili
grated cheddar cheese
diced green onion
tomato salsa
sour cream

turn the frito bag on it's side, and slice along the top. While holding it with one hand, ladle over bubbling chili, sprinkle with cheese, then add a dollop of salsa, a dollop of sour cream, and sprinkle with green onion. Must consume with a plastic spoon and throw the used utensils (including bag and napkins) at your brother for the full experience.

The picture is the basic stadium version with just chili, white onions and cheese.

looks like vomit.

Vomit doesn't have a pleasant crunch to it....at least not from what I've tasted.

Parkin Cake moist ginger and molasses, you eat it on Bonfire Night, its gorgeous.

wikipedia says;
Parkin or Perkin is a soft cake traditionally made of oatmeal and molasses, which originated in northern England. Often associated with Yorkshire, particularly the Leeds area, its precise origins are unclear, and it is very widespread and popular in other areas, such as Lancashire. Parkin is generally moist and even sometimes sticky. In Hull and East Yorkshire, it has a drier, more biscuit-like texture than in other areas. Parkin is traditionally eaten on Bonfire Night, 5 November, but is also enjoyed year-round. It is baked commercially throughout Yorkshire, but is a mainly domestic product in other areas
The principal ingredients of a Yorkshire parkin are flour, oatmeal, black treacle (molasses), fat (traditionally lard, but modern recipes use butter or margarine), and ginger. While it is possible to find recipes that omit oatmeal or treacle, or even both. Both were important constituents of the Northern, working-class diet in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, so it is likely that parkin evolved in that period of the Industrial Revolution. However, Lancashire Parkin is baked using Golden Syrup and extra sugar. The secret of a good parkin is the texture.

never gonna share our secret recipes of old with you filthy maggots!

Thats not the spirit at all Norc! And I was hoping to learn how to make the famous Fjordian Ice and Herring dessert, although I reckon I can guess two of the ingredients already.

I'de love to tell you, but then I'de had to kill you of course.

Must be a mighty tasty dessert to be worth death Norc! Or a mighty suspicous one.

I like the sound of Parkin cake Mrs Figg- anything which involves lard in the cooking is onto a winner.

what dear Petty should have said: that would be tremendously ambitious of you

(because I was (at least trying to) quote that bad guy from Sherlock hounds of baskerville)

I wish I had said that Norc, very witty reply (damn you Moffat!).

no one in the Sherlock fandom likes Moffat anymore..

How can they not like the person who writes and creates the show they love?

because he is a god damn troll that's why.

He stalks Who forums too and delibretly announces things that are at best, loosely based on truth. I love him for all that- perfect way to deal with it.

well, yeah but teasing us with "there is a clue which everyone has missed" ksjbfdsn !!

(btw! Martin Freeman is on tumblr!! oh god, all those poor souls.. )

Well he did run a teaser trailer for part two of last seasons Who after leaving us all with a huge mystery with the Doctor saying "Haven't you worked it out yet?"
He does love to tease his fans.

it's great, but just reminding, we have to wait like a bloody year! more even for me! probably!

Kangaroo steak

http://www.abc.net.au/local/recipes/2009/10/26/2723681.htm

I like my meat rare and bloody- that looks damn tasty. Not sure about the rabbit food, big plate of golden chips is what you want there.

Yum yum in my tum

Now you're talking Chris!! Mmmmm! And I like how the vegatbles have been put in a handy bowl you can put straight into the rabbit cage. Very thoughtful.

Are we the only country to eat their national emblem ?

Techniquely we eat ours too- sort of- our national emblem is a thistle- but you can make thistle soup, or in desperation during a buckie crisis, thistle wine. (Haggis are a devil to catch too, thistles are much easier).