©2003 Ashy Macbean.
This is a Scots recipe which traditionally calls for suet, but we're not going to use that of course. That's animal and animals need their suet more than we do. The recipe works well with any kind of oil, butter or margarine. I use a very un-Scottish combination of margarine and olive oil and that's the method I describe here.
Olive oil is becoming popular in Scotland but it's a relatively recent thing. The Scots have always been international travellers and traders. The Vikings were perhaps the first package tourists and relations with Scandinavian countries have continued since those days through the fishing industry and the oil industry. Scots fishermen have also had dealings with the Baltic States and even North America for hundreds of years. Glasgow was a trading port for ships from all over the world. When I was a kid my Uncle Charlie stole me a leather football from an Indian boat when he worked in the docks.
You would expect some culinary influence to come from so much international contact. I know olive oil is a Southern European thing, but there were historical connections with southern countries too. The town of Crail in Fife is well known for its quaint and picturesque harbour-side houses, all roofed with Italian terra cotta tiles. The tiles were brought back on trading ships on which they were used as ballast, the ships having dropped their cargoes in Italian ports. Hundreds of years ago the Scots maintained an alliance with France even when the French were at war with England. Half of the Scots nobility was French in those days.
Where was the olive oil then? When I was a kid, Olive Oil was Popeye's girl friend and that was that. I remember overhearing - well, eavesdropping on - two middle aged women talking on the upper deck of a bus and they were talking about 'foreign food'. One woman had a friend who had married an Italian fish and chip shop owner and she had gone to visit the couple, lured, in part, by the promise of a real home-cooked fish supper. The fish supper was duly cooked and presented to the visitor who, as she recounted, 'scoffed the lot', remarking to her hosts that it was the best fish supper she had ever tasted. When she asked what the chef's secret was, and was told that it was the use of high quality olive oil for frying the fish and chips, she apparently suffered such a violent reaction that 'without a word of a lie', she 'couldny keep it doon.' She had to run straight to the toilet and 'throw the whole lot back up again.'
George Mackay Brown wrote wonderful stories and poems about how the common people of Orkney hundreds of years ago enjoyed foreign wines and exotic fruits which they regularly received in return for the hospitality they showed the crews of sailing ships berthed in Scappa Flow. Maybe people just forgot.
But, getting back to the recipe, I'm going to un-Scottish it, not only by using olive oil, but also by adding some water. Skirlie is usually made using dry oatmeal with no added water. It absorbs a little water from the frying onion, but I find it a little too dry and the bits stick in my teeth. I cook skirlie with a few splashes of hot water from the kettle, added as the dish is cooking. The result isn't unlike couscous, if you've ever tasted that, although it's a bit chewier. Before you start frying your skirlie, stick the kettle on and the water will be hot just when you need it.
Ingredients
200-250g medium or coarse oatmeal
1 onion
Salt
A large blob of margarine
2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil
Chop the onion finely and fry it in the oil and margarine on a medium heat until the onion starts to soften. Add the salt and oatmeal and stir well. Cover the pan for a few minutes then add a generous splash of hot water, stir and re-cover. Repeat this after 3 or 4 minutes and a few minutes after that, taste a few grains. If you think they could be a little softer, repeat the water-splashing thing again. It should take about fifteen minutes altogether to produce a nice bowl of skirlie.
As this is still quite a dry dish, it might be best to serve it alongside something with more liquid in it. The taste is quite neutral so it will go with almost anything. I find it delicious with a generous helping of dressed green salad.