Modern Recipes

A lightly poached egg makes the perfect casserole topping I've featured Wee Willie Winkie sausages a couple of times before on this blog but if you're unfamiliar with them, they're simply small, skinless pork sausages which are very popular in Scotland with children. They also make perfect cocktail sausages. They are usually gently fried before being served with fairly simple accompaniments. In this instance, however, I decided to bring these favourites from my own childhood in to the twenty-first century and incorporate them in a tasty casserole made from a selection of Mediterranean style vegetables. I have made the casserole a little bit spicy but that is optional, as is serving the poached egg on top. Wee Willie Winkie sausages and Mediterranean vegetable selection for casserole Ingredients (Serves Two) 12 ounce tray of assorted Mediterranean style roasting vegetables Pack of 20 Wee Willie Winkie sausages 14 ounce can chopped tomatoes in tomato juice 1 red chilli pepper...

A Tasty Way of Serving a Scottish Kids' Food Classic Wee Willie Winkie cocktail sausages and salad filled pitta bread Wee Willie Winkie sausages evoke for me many warm memories from childhood. In fact, until a couple of years ago, I thought they had long since been consigned to the annals of history and didn't for a minute imagine they were still available. It was actually only by pure coincidence that I saw them one night in my local supermarket - still sold in what is at least similar packaging - and I knew immediately that I had to buy a pack and try them again for old times' sake. While Wee Willie Winkies are aimed at and widely enjoyed by children, I decided to try experimenting with the sausages. They are commonly served cold as part of buffets on cocktail sticks so at the time I came at my experiments from the angle of producing serving ideas for cocktail sausages at parties . That's something I may develop further in future but in this instance, I wanted to com...

Sausage, bacon, black pudding and more Scottish breakfast soup with poached egg Sausage, bacon, egg, black pudding and mushrooms are integral parts of the full Scottish breakfast (or indeed any British fried breakfast) but it's probably not often that we find them collectively incorporated in a soup. It is for this reason that I should perhaps offer a bit of an explanation. This idea came about one day last week when I had a conversation with a family friend about a delicious black pudding and mushroom soup he had tasted recently in a hotel in the Lake District. His wife had a go at making it when they returned home with what he assures me were delicious results. Me being me, however, I immediately started thinking about how I could adapt the concept further and (hopefully!) take it to new levels of deliciousness. What follows are the results of my experiment and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Simple vegetable stock ingredients Ingredients 1 large carrot 1 medium white onion...

Scrambled quail eggs with mini cocktail sausages and deep fried potato skins If you are in the UK and you think of sausages, egg and chips, you will not probably conjure up in your mind an image much like the one above! You are more likely of course to think of chips, bangers and a fried egg. While this dish is very different, it is essentially however still sausages, egg and chips. It came about in the first instance when I was thinking of a way to cook the remaining quail eggs I had from my recent gift pack (see an earlier post). I wanted to cook them in a way I had never cooked quail eggs before, so I decided to try them scrambled. Probably the main reason why we wouldn't automatically think of scrambling quail eggs is because they are of course so small. I used eight of them in this dish and the resultant scrambled egg quantity probably wasn't even as much as would be provided by two chicken eggs. As the eggs are so small, I decided to use small cocktail sausages to serve w...