Meat Pie from Scotland - Bridie

Time is always rushing by so fast and ... well ... often I don't know where it went. There is not much you can do about it, but it's better, if you don't feel like your life is just passing by and you are just in a routine and are not trying out new things. Well, this time you might try something from Scotland … Bridie …

Already before I thought about trying it and so I had to do some research and here we go with my results.

Ingredients:
300 g flour
75 g butter
75 g lard
Salt and pepper
A bit of water
500 g minced mead
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Method:
First of all we start with the pastry. The flour goes into a bowl with a pinch of salt. Oops, I added pepper here, too. Ah, no worries. Then add the butter and lard. Rub it into the flour. Then add just enough water to bring the pastry together into a nice lump of dough.

Wrap the dough into cling film and put it into the fridge for one hour.

Divide the dough into four portions and roll each one out into a kind of rectangular shape.

Mix the minced meat with the chopped onion and garlic and generously season with pepper and a bit of salt. Accordingly divide the meat mixture between the four dough pieces.

Wet the edges of the pastry with water and fold over the loose end and carefully seal it. Move the two ends of the closed pastry together so that the crimped edge is on the outside. Hm, does this make sense? Have a look …

Make incisions on top of the bridies. Transfer the unbaked bridies to the fridge for half an hour. When it’s almost time, pre-heat the oven to 200 °C. Bake the bridies for 30 to 40 minutes until they have a lovely colour. Luckily, I noticed the auto-correction or otherwise we would have had baked brides. For sure something, we don’t like to have.

Ready for eating. Either eat them just like they are as a snack or with potatoes and vegetables on the side.

Some kind of gravy would be nice for they can be a bit dry. Well, at least I had a glass of cider on the side and a glass of whisky afterwards …

Bridie

So, die Zeit ist abgelaufen. Erst mal komme ich wohl nicht nach Schottland. Aber wenigstens kann ich ein wenig traditionelles schottisches Essen ausprobieren. Hm, Haggis erst mal nicht. Eher diese gefüllten Teigtaschen, die man Bridie nennt. Für solche Sachen bin ich ja immer zu haben.

Zutaten:
300 g Mehl
75 g Butter
75 g Schweineschmalz
Salz und Pfeffer
Etwas Wasser
500g Hackfleisch
1 Zwiebel, feingehackt
2 Knoblauchzehen, feingehackt

Zubereitung:
Erst mal zum Teig. Das Mehl in eine Schüssel geben. Dazu kommt eine Prise Salz … oops irgendwie hab ich auch eine Prise Pfeffer dazugegeben. Was soll’s. Nun noch die Butter und den Schweineschmalz dazu. Das dann sorgfältig ins Mehl massieren. Zum Schluss noch Wasser dazu, so dass wir einen schönen Teigklumpen erhalten. Dieser wandert dann für eine Stunde in den Kühlschrank – eingewickelt in Frischhaltefolie.

Währenddessen könnte man schon mal die Füllung vorbereiten. Keine grosse Sache. Einfach das Fleisch mit der Zwiebel und dem Knoblauch vermengen, salzen und pfeffern und fertig isset.

So, Teig zur Hand, in vier Teile aufteilen und ausrollen, in so ne Art Rechtecke. Die Fleischmasse auf die vier Teigteile verteilen (siehe Foto oben). Die Ränder des Teiges mit Wasser anfeuchten und zusammenklappen, kleben. Wie oben auf dem Foto gezeigt, die Spitzen der Teigtaschen nach innen zusammenschieben und oben am Teig zwei Einschnitte machen. Das ganze geht dann nochmal für eine halbe Stunde in den Kühlschrank bevor die Bridies bei 200 °C 30-40 Minuten gebacken werden.

Das fertige Produkt so als Snack essen oder mit Kartoffeln und Gemüse zusammen, vielleicht noch ne Sauce dazu oder vielleicht auch nen Spritzer Ketchup.

Die Bridies schmecken auch kalt am nächsten Tag oder auch wieder kurz aufgewärmt.

Time for Loch Bloggers Around the World

Another week gone. That is how things work. If it's different and you are  wondering why on earth does the time not move on, you probably sit at home in a dark room on your sofa and have a boring life and you don't know what to do with it. Or maybe even ...
... but we don't like to dwell on such thoughts. Anyway, give me 48 hours a day and 1,000,000 years time, I still wouldn't have enough time. Well, this year I don't even have time (nor funds) to go on holiday. There was one thing I would have loved to do, that is doing a little bit of hiking and exploring in Scotland. However, as the year progresses, the time to do that clearly runs out, for I reckon winter will not be such a good time for outdoor activities of that kind.
Accordingly we switch to indoor activities and things you can do at your very home ... cooking food from and inspired from Scotland. For here we are with our new theme for Bloggers Around the World ...

SCOTLAND

Yes, right, it was supposed to be the theme for September, but hey, no worries, there is still enough time to join. We can also do it a few days in October still. We don't need to be too fussy about deadlines. After all, the word doesn't sound nice anyway.

Well, what are we going to cook or to bake. I leave that to your imagination or research skills. However, the last time someone asked me that question, the answer was Scottish Whisky Cake. Let me show you ...

So far my ideas(?) regarding what to bake. For the rest I also depend on research. What could be on your menu then?

There might be some kind of porridge or even kippers. Do I hear haggis? I don't know what comes to your mind here ... so we will see. I can also throw in some words for sweet things: Cranachan and shortbread, the latter being one of my favourites.

You see, we already have some ideas here. Just give it your special touch - if you like - and here we go.

Whatsoever, I myself might focus my attention in the direction of Scotch Pie and Bridie. 

Now you should have enough keywords to go ahead in the Bloggers Around the World Challenge. 

The only thing that is left are a few guidelines ...

1. Link to Cooking Around the World and this very challenge in your post.
2. Use the "Bloggers Around the World" badge (shown just after the guidelines and ... you know).
3. Use either an old post or write up something completely new.
4. You can enter as many posts as your time permits to write up, don't spam me with 1000 old posts.
5. Enjoy the trip ...

There is a wonderful way I can find out about your post and don't forget it for the round-up - you post a link in the comments section of this post. What are you waiting for?! Right, just relax and take your time and join us for Loch Bloggers Around the World ...

Scottish Whisky Cake for Best of British

Fàilte! Ciamar a tha sibh?

That’s Scottish Gaelic and means: Welcome! How are you?

Well, I really, from the heart, hope you are doing well!!!

Some ten years ago, let’s say, 15 years ago, or wait, I can’t get it correct right this minute. So, somewhere in between that time, a good friend of mine got married (I don’t need to remember his wedding date. He does and he gets in trouble if he doesn’t.).

As it comes at the wedding reception, as his friend, I had to do something to entertain the masses, OK, the bride, the groom, and the guests. Somehow I had or found or whatever this sketch, this comedy thingy. Did I tell this story before? Can’t remember either! Right, but it fits NOW!

Good! This sketch was about this man demonstrating how to bake a Scottish whisky cake, of course involving a lot of whisky. I think a whole bottle was necessary.

It goes like:

First of all check the quality of the whisky [drinking a glass of whisky]. Cream the sugar together with the butter. Check again, whether the whisky is still good [drinking a glass of whisky]. We-ell, add the eeeeeeggs [slurring the words already]. … OK, you have about a feel on how it went until the whole bottle of whisky is gone.

The only thing you need to remember now is: DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!

Just follow the instructions below for preparing this cake.

I enter this post to the Best of British Challenge for July, which is themed Scotland's food. More info you find as well with Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen and at The Face of New World Appliances and at London Unattached from Fiona.

Scottish Whisky Cake

Ingredients

For the cake batter:

250 g of butter (Gaelic: im) at room temperature

250 g of sugar (Gaelic: siùcar)

4 eggs (Gaelic: ugh)

500 g spelt flour (or 200 g + 300 g wheat flour)

15 g of baking powder

15 g vanilla extract or vanilla sugar

2 cl Sottish whisky

200 ml milk (Gaelic: bainne)

60 g white chocolate

60 g dark chocolate

For the icing:

160 g icing sugar

60 g butter at room temperature
2 tsps of honey

Juice of one lemon

2 cl Scottish whisky

Some roasted and shredded hazelnuts for decoration

Method:

Here we go. As I said you can of course skip all the whisky tasting part!

Have a round, let’s say 25 cm (±5 cm tolerance) baking tin form, prepared with butter for non stick ready to go and heat the oven up to 175°C.

Cream the sugar together with the butter. Add the four eggs (we don’t bother today with all these separating and whisking egg white and so forth). Simply whisk it together.

Sieve in the flour with the baking powder.

Before I go on talking to much, add the vanilla extract or sugar (whichever you are using), the whisky, and the milk. Well, mix well! Break the chocolate in pieces of the desired size. I like them rather more chunky. So that’s what I did then. Fold the pieces in.

Get the cake batter to the baking tin form and chuck, oops, put it gently in the middle of the oven and bake for one hour.

In between, do whatever you like. Whatever you can do with one hour. There are a lot of things, of course depending on what you like. You could use the time to clean up the mess you created by now. You could have a meal (even including preparation – depending on what you do of course). Whatever! It’s up to you and I’m not going to tell you what I did.

Once the cake is ready, remove it from the oven and let cool down for a while.

It’s time to think about the icing. Beat it all together. Give your best and make sure you don’t have any chunks of icing sugar sticking together (I forgot to think about it, no worries, though).

Let the icing flow over the cake, let the forces of nature have it’s work complete. If you feel like it, you can spread over the pieces of hazelnuts.

Even my dog, Lucy, had her part as she dressed up in her little Scottish dress for this challenge. Well, OK, right, was dressed up!

While talking about fitting music (see comments below) ... here a nice little addition I found on YouTube: