Having made pickled beetroot yesterday, my favourite way of eating it is with Scottish stovies. I can't remember the last time that I had stovies, I reckon it must be about 20 years ago or so. For those who aren't familiar, stovies, as well as being the original Scots 'pub grub', is a form of potato hash in which is added left over meat. Typically pubs don't have much in the way of left overs, so tinned corned beef is used. Stovies usually come with bannocks (Scots oat cakes), and pickled beetroot.
OK, to get started and trying to make them as authentic as possible, I made up a batch of bannocks.
Oats and whole meal flour were mixed, with some salt and sugar added, and butter was then rubbed in.
A small amount of hot water was added, binding everything together to form a stiff dough.
This was then rolled out to about half a centimeter thick, and I used a whisky glass as a cutter.
Ready for the oven.
and done when turned brown after about 20 minutes.
Time to get on with the stovies. Not a lot of ingredients, onion, potato, corned beef, and gravy salt. Ideally the onion would be fried in beef dripping, but alas couldn't get any. Made do with some pork lard instead.
Need to get the onion nicely browned.
The cut potato is then added, and water up to about three quarters of the potato. The gravy salt is then crumbled over it.
I added about a quarter of the tin of corned beef, which melts down and helps flavour the potato.
Gravy salt, for those unfamiliar, is like a very large stock cube, with similiar characteristics. Never thought that I'd get it here, and I was going to use an Oxo cube instead.
It was like a time gone by opening the tin of corned beef, which had a key on the outside which you put into a flap and keep twisting it around until the tin is fully open.
The stovies were brought to a boil and simmered for around 25 minutes until the potato was soft (but not mushy).
The rest of the corned beef is then cut into cubes and added to the potato, mixing them altogether.
Transferred everything in the pot into an oven proof dish, added a few dabs of butter on top, and put in the oven for about 15 minutes to get a slight crust on the top.
And there you have it, complete with bannock and beetroot. A Jockanese feast.
The pickling of the beetroot turned out great also.