The Great Bread Making Adventure: Scottish Morning Rolls & a St. Andrew's Day Feast

 

To honour my Scottish ancestry, I thought of observing St. Andrew's Day, November 30. Unfortunately, I have been so busy making quilts that I didn't get around to it until now. I had, however, done an internet search on how the Scottish celebrate St. Andrew's Day, and one of the things mentioned was eating haggis and Cullen Skink. I knew what haggis was but Cullen Skink? The name doesn't give me any clue as to what it is. Well, neither does haggis for that matter. But the internet is such a useful thing and not only did I find recipes for vegan haggis (Ultimate Vegan Haggis and Easy Vegan Haggis), but I also found out that Cullen Skink is a creamy smoked haddock soup, named after the village of Cullen, where it apparently originated. And skink? It is a Scots word that refers to a shin, knuckle or hough of beef that would traditionally be used to make a broth. But somewhere in its history, it must have been switched to fish. Whatever, at least it's not lizard soup, which is what a skink is in English. And I was able to find a vegan version of Cullen Skink as well. And I was very thankful that the recipe didn't include seaweed to make it taste "fishy". Seaweed probably ranks higher than cilantro in my list of what not to eat. 
What else to serve? Well, my research said some type of bread and greens - cabbage or kale - and tatties and neeps. I already knew that tatties were potatoes and neeps were turnips or rutabagas (known as Swedes in Great Britain), often served together in the same "mash". I had some cabbage in my fridge, so I googled once again to find how the Scots served it, and found a recipe for Rumbledethumps, which is a mixture of mashed potatoes and cooked cabbage, topped with cheese and browned in the oven. That recipe was easy to veganize and incredibly tasty. You'll see it at the top of the picture. And that took care of the "tatties" part of the "tatties and neeps", so I just made mashed rutabaga as another side dish (on the left in the picture). 
The Cullen Skink was also very tasty. It called for a can of banana blossoms, which I didn't even know were a thing. Maybe I could find it in an Asian food store or one of the large supermarkets in the city. But I wasn't planning a trip to the city any time soon. Fortunately, the recipe did offer the options of artichoke hearts or green jackfruit, both of which I had. And I chose the artichoke hearts, which I should have rinsed as they had a bit of a tang, which I don't think was needed in the soup. But it was still delicious. 
I chose the Ultimate Vegan Haggis recipe and certainly, the ingredients are far more palatable than in the original haggis. I don't imagine I would have ventured to try it even when I was a meat eater. But, to me, nutmeg is a sweet spice, belonging in desserts. And I'm not even that fond of it in desserts. So, to put it in a savory dish just isn't my thing. The flavour is not horrible, but I think I might try it with a sauce or gravy to try and tone down the nutmeg. And if I ever decide to try it again, I might switch to sage or poultry seasoning instead of the nutmeg. I'm really not sure why people like that flavour in a savory dish. I'm also not to sure about the texture - is haggis supposed to be crunchy/tough? Because my steel-cut oats did not get well done, and I don't know if it's supposed to be that way. 
And since it was a Scottish meal, I decided to try the Scottish Morning Rolls for the bread, even though this wasn't a morning meal. The odd thing about the recipe on page 140 in The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making is that it includes no added fat: no lard, even though the description on page 55 states that they are made with lard; nor any butter, shortening or vegetable oil. That left me scratching my head, and wondering if the person writing the recipes actually corroborated with the one that wrote the descriptions. And also wondering how authentic the recipes actually are. And even though I had no intention of using lard, I wanted a more authentic recipe, and I would choose how to modify it. So, once again, I resorted to the internet, and found a more authentic recipe for Morning Rolls, which gave me the option of lard or vegetable shortening. I also switched out the white flour for whole grain (using a combination of hard red and hard white wheat flour) and adding extra water, since whole grain flours absorb more moisture than white flour. I probably should have added more as it was a rather stiff dough, and I'm wondering if there was sufficient liquid in the original recipe, as it says that it should form a "sticky dough" and it definitely was not, even with the extra water. Either that or I had very "thirsty" flour. 😁 One thing I found rather amusing in both this recipe and the one in the cookbook was baking sheet size. This recipe, which makes 8 rolls, says to grease a "large" baking sheet, and the one in the book, which makes 10 rolls, says to grease 2 baking sheets. For 8 rolls, I used one of my smaller baking sheets, and even then, there likely would have been room for a dozen rolls. And my largest baking sheets would hold enough rolls for a banquet. So, just how big are baking sheets in the United Kingdom? For that matter, how big are their ovens, if my smaller baking sheet would be considered large over there? Anyway, you'll see my results in the centre in the picture above. The taste was good, but I think the texture could have been a little softer. I also found that working in only 30 g of shortening into 500 g of flour did not yield a breadcrumb-like texture. I could barely tell that there was any fat in the flour at all. But I wouldn't want any more fat, especially since shortening is a particularly unhealthy fat. 
So Rumbledethumps and Cullen Skink are definite keepers. The haggis could use a little work, as could the morning rolls.