Modern Recipes

Homemade Scottish steak and kidney pie with garden fresh potatoes and carrots Steak pie in Scotland is of course normally a combination of diced stewing steak and beef link sausages in gravy, topped with puff pastry. Steak and kidney is more often considered an English rather than wider British combination for a pie filling. Since my teens, however, I have preferred steak and kidney pie to traditional Scottish steak pie - though I do love both! This dish is a combination of steak and kidney filling served in the traditional Scottish style steak pie style. Scottish steak and kidney Scottish steak and kidney is widely available in Scotland both from butcher's shops and from supermarkets. If you don't see it on display, try asking for it to see if the particular shop has it available. I bought it in this instance from my local Morrisons supermarket. Baby potatoes and carrots fresh from the garden The vegetables I served with the steak and kidney pie were gifted me as fresh as fres...

Smoked mackerel fillets with new Ayrshire potatoes and peas Mackerel is one of my favourite eating fish. It is delicious, nutritious and incredibly versatile in terms of the many different ways it can be cooked. Smoking mackerel is a great way of preserving it and adding a whole range of delicious new flavours, not just from the smoke but from the brining solution initially used on the uncooked fillets. I regularly go sea fishing and when I do get a nice bag of summer mackerel, I love to smoke them myself at home. This is a lot easier than you may think, with the results more than justifying the time invested. Me preparing to smoke freshly caught mackerel fillets at home I've written an easy to follow guide on how to smoke mackerel at home but aside from the fresh mackerel, the first thing you will need is a smoker. Smokers come in a huge variety of  forms (both hot and cold smokers) as well as a huge variety of price ranges but you can pick up a real bargain home smoker on your l...