Three Chimneys: Whisky Fruit Loaf

I'm always a bit worried when I attempt loaf cakes and fruit cakes. There's always that slight worry over whether or not they're fully cooked. Every year, when I make my Christmas cake, there's that worry - worse, because I try to do a different recipe each year - over whether I got the timing right, whether that tester really was clean when it came out of the cake, did I just miss the massive uncooked section in the middle? The fear that, on Christmas day, when Dad and I both cut into our cakes (to swap bits of it), mine will collapse into a gooey mass of uncooked batter.
Still, that hasn't happened to me yet, and this isn't a Christmas cake. It has most of the same ingredients as one - dried fruit, chopped peel, glace cherries, a bit of spice, and some alcohol. It almost tastes like one. I suppose, cooked in a round tin instead of two loaf tins, fed with more whisky, then marzipanned and iced, it could be one. I'm not sure how well it would keep - but it tastes so good, I'm not sure how long it would need to keep.

Three Chimneys: Roast Crown of Grouse with Beetroot and Blackcurrant Gravy

First find your grouse. I suppose you could go and shoot it yourself, but I don't know of any shoots round here, and I'd probably miss anyway. No game dealers locally (well, none that I could find anyway), so I resorted to the internet. Shamefully, my grouse were English. I'll try to make my next ones a bit more local...
Having had my grouse arrive (along with a rabbit, which was supposed to be already jointed but wasn't - in the freezer to be dealt with another time), the first step in the recipe was to turn these little birds into crowns. The 'crown' is just the breasts attached to the bone, so you have to remove the legs and base bone. Luckily grouse bones seem to be quite small - I was able to achieve the task with just my big knife and a pair of scissors (and no loss of any important bits of me).
Having separated the legs, crown and base bone (binned), next start preparing the gravy. As with the lamb, the gravy involves lots of chopping, a long time simmering, straining and further heating. This time, I started well in advance of the time I planned dinner for, and didn't get into quite so bad a state. The gravy uses the grouse legs, various vegetables, and copious quantities of alcohol (red wine and port). The book also calls for game stock. Not having any, I substituted a combination of lamb and vegetable - I'm sure it gave a different taste, but it seemed to be acceptable.
I decided to do skirlie potato cakes with this, so prepared those while the gravy was having it's hours-long simmer.
With everything prepared - gravy done, grouse crowned and bacon-covered, potato cakes made - the dish comes together quite quickly. The grouse need browned in a frying pan, then 10 minutes roasting and another 10 minutes resting in the bottom of the oven. The potato cakes take 10 minutes in the oven, so they can be cooking while the grouse is resting.
Once everything is done, it's just a matter of making it look good on the plate - a task at which I still fail most of the time.

Three Chimneys: Autumn Pudding

This didn't quite work out. I think there were a number of reasons
- I didn't use enough syrup in the pudding
- The bread was thick sliced
- There was too much bread for the amount of fruit I could fit in the ramekins I used

Still, it tasted good. I'll have to try these again.

Three Chimneys: Rumbledethumps

Simple but good. Basically, mashed potatoes mixed with shredded cooked kale. Well, that's the Three Chimneys definition of it. I've seen other ones. Sue Lawrence in A Cook's Tour of Scotland includes turnip in her version. However, F. Marian McNeill in The Scots Kitchen agrees with the Three Chimneys version. We had this with haggis and turnip. One thing I can never get right is mashed turnip. I think I need a better masher.

Pickled Beetroot

Duncan was given two carrier bags by a guy at work, and he of course brought them home for me. one contained potatoes, and one contained beetroot. Potatoes, no problem. Beetroot? How am I going to use up half a dozen beetroot? Well, they were free, I've got enough to play with, and some jam jars left over, I'll try pickling them.
So, I go searching, read a few recipes, and come up with something I hope will work.
First, cook the beetroot. I baked them rather than boiling them. Wash them thoroughly, cut of most of the root and leaves (but leave some on), place in a covered casserole dish and bake at about 180C for anything between 1 and 2 hours depending on the size.
Once the beetroot is cooked, leave it to cool slightly, until till hot but just cool enough to handle. While they're cooling, sterilise the jars* and make the pickling liquid.
From my reading of various recipes, the pickling liquid is basically vinegar with various additions. The vinegar can be diluted. I used 200ml of cider vinegar and 100ml water. To this I added some juniper berries, cloves, mustard seed and a little sugar. Place this over a medium heat.
While the pickling liquid is heating, slice the beetroot. My jars are quite small, so I quartered the beetroot before slicing them. once the beetroot are prepared, get the jars out of the oven and bring the liquid to the boil. Pack the beetroot into the jars, pour over the liquid - making sure the jars are full right up - and seal.
I unfortunately, didn't have quire enough liquid for the three jars. The beetroot was covered in all three before sealing, but not right to the top. I thought it would be OK, but either the liquid evaporates or the beetroot absorbs it. So it's now a 'fridge pickle', needing to be eaten quite soon. The one we opened on Thursday seemed to be fine, although a little sharp for my taste (more sugar needed in the liquid? Different type of vinegar?) We'll see how the other ones have held up when they get opened.

*Turn the oven down to about 150C, wash the jars in hot soapy water (rinse in very hot water to get rid of the soap - not a good addition to anything), and put upside down in the oven - the same process as sterilising the jars for jam.