Uist News -  After a few wettish days the skies have cleared to leave cool, fine and dry weather. Short-Eared Owls very active all day just now, hunting for voles, shrews and mice to feed their growing broods of chicks.

Serving Suggestions for Peat Smoked Salmon

 

Hebridean Peat Smoked Salmon is so good as it is we are reluctant to suggest you use it in any recipe that might over-gild the lilly. So here are some serving suggestions that will compliment the exceptional taste and texture of our Hebridean Smoked Salmon.

 

Peat Smoked Salmon with Rocket

 

Simply lay out a slice of salmon, evenly cover with rocket leaves, with stems removed, roll up the slice and the cut the tube into short lengths.

Make a delicious dressing to accompany the fish with a mixture of;

1 tablespoon créme frâiche

1 tablespoon greek yoghurt

1teaspoon grain mustard

1 teaspoon horseradish

Peat Smoked Salmon with Buckwheat Blini

 

Blini are yeasted flour pancakes that make an excellent platform for your Peat Smoked Salmon. Traditionally the blini is heaped with smoked salmon and dressed with a little créme frâiche and caviar and this is certainly very good indeed. But you can substitute the créme frâiche and the caviar with a variety of good things including:

 

Greek yoghurt with lots of finely chopped fresh dill

Créme frâiche with chopped capers and lemon juice

Dill sauce thinned with a little yoghurt

Créme fráiche and yohurt with horseradish sauce cut 2:1:1

Good mayonnaise, greek yoghurt and lovage, mix dessert spoon of the first two with a good desertspoon of very finely chopped lovage leaf

 

 

It is easy enough to go and buy excellent blini from good supermarkets like Waitrose now but if you want to make your own here is a recipe.

Ingredients

165g strong white flour, or 50g buckwheat flour and 115g strong white flour

¹/₂ teaspoon salt

5g easystart yeast, breadmaker yeast is fine

150ml créme frâiche

175ml milk

2 medium free-range eggs, separated

clarified butter

 

Method

Sift the flour and salt into a good sized mixing bowl, then mix in the dried yeast. Combine the créme fráiche and the milk in a saucepan and gently warm over the heat - warming this will help to get the yeast started when you add it to the flour.

Add the egg yolks to the warm milk whisking all the time then add all the liquid to the flour. Whisk until you have a smooth thick batter. Cover the bowl and leave somewhere warm for an hour. Whisk the egg whites until the soft peak stage then fold into the batter and reserve for a further hour. The batter will be good and frothy by then.

To make the clarified butter heat 100g of butter in a saucepan until fully molten and hot, but take care it does not colour or start to burn. Decant into a cup and leave for a few minutes in which time the butter oil will have separated from the whey below it.

 

Using a heavy bottomed frying pan on a medium heat, brush the pan with some of the butter oil then pour a tablespoon of the batter on to the surface swiftly followed by another half spoonful on top. The batter will need 30 - 40 seconds to cook before it needs flipping and cooking on the reverse side for 20 - 30 seconds. It will look overly thick at this stage but do not worry about this as it is all air. The first pancake is the experimental one to gauge the heat of the pan so you may need to adjust the heat. The pancakes should be around 4" in diameter depending on batter thickness but the idea is to try and get them all about the same size.

Reserve and cool the pancakes on a wire and when cool wrap in a double layer in foil. Warm the blini in a low oven and serve with the topping of your choice and an ice cold glass of good vodka.

Scrambled Eggs with Peat Smoked Salmon

The classic combination of soft curds of scrambled egg, seasoned to perfection and dressed with aromatic Peat Smoked Salmon - perfect. To make the most of this wonderful combination the best accompaniment is very thin and crisp melba toast which gives a delicious contrast of texture. 

 

Ingredients (quantities per person)

Two fresh medium free-range eggs

splash of single cream

good pinch of salt and twist of coarse ground black pepper

knob of butter

two slices of Peat Smoked Salmon, cut into strips

 

Method

In a small bowl whisk up the eggs cream and seasoning until uniform. Heat a thick based non-stick saucepan on a medium heat and drop in the knob of butter moving the butter about until fully melted - the butter must not burn or colour, if it does discard and start again with the pan a little cooler.

Add the egg mixture to the pan and leave to start setting for about 20 seconds. Using a wooden or heat-proof plastic spoon lift and fold the setting eggs then leave again for a short time for more egg to set. Keep doing this until you have lovely soft and glossy curds with just a little running egg remaining - the eggs will continue to cook even off the heat.

Serve in a warmed bowl with the strips of smoked salmon arranged on the top ( do not be tempted to mix in the smoked salmon as it will cook in the eggs) - extra black pepper or chopped chives can be added to taste.

 

Peat Smoked Salmon and Toasted Seed Salad

This is a very quick and delicious salad to serve at any time of year but is a real treat as part of a smart picnic.

 

Ingredients, for four serving

 

250g Hebridean Peat Smoked Salmon

150g washed rocket leaves or mixed baby leaves

4 tablespoons in total of the following seeds: pumpkin, sesame, sunflower fried in a non-stick pan in 1 tablespoon of sunflower oil.

Dressing made from;

1 tablespoon greek yogurt

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 teaspoon horseradish sauce

1 teaspoon créme frâiche

1 teaspoon mild grain mustard

 

Method

Fill a washing up bowl or sink with cold water.

Fry the seeds first in the sunflower oil adding the sesame seeds only when the sunflower and punpkin seeds begin to colour - if they are added before this they will be burnt and start flying out of the pan. As soon as the seeds are coloured, not browned, rapidly cool the frying pan by placing on the sink full of cold water which will stop the seeds cooking further.

 

To make the dressing combine all the ingedients in a bowl and whisk until smooth. It should be lightly runny - if too stiff add more créme frâiche.

 

To serve, either toss the leaves with the dressing or place the leaves on plates sprinkle them with the cold toasted seeds and heap generously with smoked salmon. The dressing can be served on the side or on the plates.