Skirlie Recipe

- Skirlie is one of my favourite dishes, it's really a side dish or a stuffing - but I could eat tonnes of the stuff! It's great to use as chicken/turkey stuffing and tastes even yummier when it soaks up the bird's juices. Skirlie is also a great addition to mince and tatties or stovies. The name comes from the way it's cooked - skirled in the pan. The book Scots Cooking: The Best Traditional and Contemporary Scottish Recipes by Sue Lawrence compares the hissing noise in the frying pan as the skirl of the pipes. Sue suggests serving Skirlie with Champit Tatties.

Christopher Trotter calls skirlie a good gravy soaker upper in his National Trust for Scotland cook book The Scottish Kitchen.

Skirlie is also called Scottish stuffing. My mum makes the best skirlie around:

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Skirlie Ingredients:

50g of butter or dripping
1 onion - finely chopped
175g oatmeal
Salt and pepper
Big spoon to give to Chris to shovel it in with!

An older and more traditional skirlie recipe can be found in the book The Scots Kitchen by F. Marian McNeill. She does not use butter or dripping but uses suet instead which is melted and used to brown the onions.

Maw Broon from the Sunday Post has published a cookbook full of her favourite Scottish and family recipes. Read More About It!

Skirlie Cooking Directions:

1. Melt the butter in a pan and add the onion, frying gently to soften.

2. Stir in the oatmeal, season and cook gently for 10 minutes.

The book Scots Cooking: The Best Traditional and Contemporary Scottish Recipes by Sue Lawrence recommends using medium oatmeal but suggests that coarse oatmeal which is half medium and half pinhead could also be used though is will give the Skirlie a rougher and nuttier texture.

3. Serve with Stovies and give Chris a ring!

The book Nick Nairn's New Scottish Cookery describes a wee bit of the history of skirlie such as how it would have traditionally been served with grouse. Nick Nairn prefers his with a range of food such as lamb or scallops. His recipe for skirlie differs slightly in that he uses bacon, beef or duck fat or dripping and medium or coarse oatmeal.

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Skirlie Mash

An alternative recipe for skirlie is skirlie mash whose recipe can be found in the Three Chimneys Recipe Book which is suggested to serve with game stews, hotpots or roast chicken. Her skirlie mash dish from Grampian Television show Desert Island Chefs was Grilled West Coast cod and skirlie mash in saffron broth with mussels, leek and fennel.

The Book Maw Broons Cookbook has a skirlie recipe and talks about Pa Broons love for skirlie. He loves to eat in cold with a couple of pickled eggs. Buy Maw Broon's Cookbook at a discounted price and with free delivery available.

Skirlie Potato Cakes

Another alternative and modern skirlie recipe found in the Three Chimneys Recipe Book is Skirlie Potato Cakes. Chef, writer and owner of the Three Chimneys Restaurant is Shirley spears and she adds finely chopped parsley and chives to her skirlie recipes. She serves her skirlie potato cakes with venison.

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Scottish Cook Books

Skirlies

The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain by Si King and Dave Myers has a delicious skirlie recipe which they refer to as skirlies, though Scottishrecipes have not heard of skirlie being called skirlies before. However there is a tasty looking cafe called Skirlies in Paisley, Glasgow. Skirlies website is www.skirlies.co.uk

The BBC programme that accompanied the book filmed the Hairy Bikers' cooking skirlie at the Castlegate in Aberdeen and has photos of Si King and Dave Myers cooking with chef David Littlewood of The Milton in Aberdeenshire and sampling Aberdeen Angus beef at Foveran. For their skirlies recipe the Hairy Bikers' cooked Aberdeen Beef Olives with kidney gravy, skirlies and champit potatoes.