The famous Scottish fish soup made with smoked haddock is called Cullen Skink. Scotland produces delicious fish and this famous, very rich and tasty soup recipe originates from the fishing village of Cullen, in Morayshire, in the north-east of Scotland. At one time this fish would have been cheap and plentiful, and this dish would have been served regularly. But of course with the shortages of fish in the North Sea today, it is now more expensive to buy.

The word “Skink” (which means “essence” in Gaelic) is a soup which was originally made with shin of beef (it was a sort of soup-stew) , but the main ingredients for the Cullen Skink is smoked haddock and potatoes. The traditional way of cooking it was using “Finnan Haddock”, which needs to be skinned after cooking. This is a very fiddly way of making it, but the recipe below is a bit easier.

This Cullen Skink Recipe makes a filling and rich soup and although it can be a meal by itself, it makes a very unusual starter (providing your guests like fish of course). Serve it with thick slices of homemade crusty bread and unsalted butter.

Cullen Skink Recipe

Ingredients

A large smoked haddock (weighing around 2lb)

1 large onion, finely chopped.

2 pts pints (1200ml) milk

1 large potato chopped finely

Salt and pepper

1 bay leaf

Chopped parsley

Method

Skin the haddock before cooking.

Place the smoked haddock with milk and bay leaf, in a large pan.

Poach gently for a few minutes.

Remove fish from pan.

Add onion and potato to pan and cook gently until soft.

When the vegetables are soft, remove the bay leaf

Liquidise the milk, onion and potatoes until they are like a smooth cream. (If you don’t have a liquidiser, try a food processor. If you don’t have that, then use a potato masher although you won’t get such a good smooth creamy texture).

Return to the pan, and add the flaked haddock..

Season with pepper. (You probably won’t want extra salt, as the smoked fish usually provides enough salt).

Add chopped parsley.

Serve with homemade bread and unsalted butter.

For further recipes check out Authentic Scottish Food Recipes




By: May Cropley

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The first and most important thing you need to know about the bass fishing secret is that there is no real secret for catching bass or any other kind of fish for that matter. The only bass fishing secret is that there really isn’t any.

First things First

It’s important to know what kind of bass you are fishing for. There are several different kinds of bass for example there is the large mouth bass, the small mouth bass, the white bass, fresh water bass and so on. Once you have figured out which bass you are fishing for then you can move on to the bass fishing secret bait.

For this article I will be fishing for the most common bass, the big mouth bass. The bass fishing secret for the big mouth is to know what it eats in its natural habitat. That may seem like a difficult question to ask yourself but the answer is fairly simple, the big mouth eats everything from flies to small birds; basically if it hits the water the big mouth will eat it.

The type of bait you use depends on the angler, if you like to use real bait then night crawlers are exceptional for bass but if you prefer artificial bait then I would recommend using plastic worms with a Texas rig. I have found this to work well for me.

Now What?

Now that you have figured out what kind of bass you are fishing for and what kind of bait you want to use lets move on. The next bass fishing secret would be where to go to catch a big mouth bass. You can go just about anywhere to catch a big mouth. You can go to a stream, pond, river or lake.

Where ever you go big mouth bass are usually found near shore under brush (fallen trees and/or limbs) or near rocks. Very rarely are they found in the middle of the lake. Another bass fishing secret that is good know is when the best time of the year to catch bass is. You can catch big mouth any time of the year, spring, summer, winter, fall it really doesn’t matter; it all depends on what the angler prefers.

I prefer the fall because the bass are eating everything they can to fatten up for the long winter. However if you don’t live in a state where the lakes freeze over then I believe the best time to fish is late summer after spawning is over.

That’s about it.

Now that you know what a bass fishing secret, find out what works for you because the best bass fishing secret is the one you keep.




By: Fame Ahmed

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