I spent much of the last two weeks far, far away from a Trader Joe's, so I hope you'll enjoy hearing about the food that I did eat!  I was in the Scottish Highlands and truly enjoyed my tour of Scottish food.   Did I try haggis?  Read on and see!  Today I'll cover the Highlands and later this week, I'll cover the Islands (Orkney and Isle of Skye).

This trip was my first to Scotland. I had been to Ireland and England multiple times, and honestly, I wasn't too sure about the food that was going to greet me in Scotland.  Sure, we all know about fish and chips, haggis, and deep fried Mars bars...  in fact, the deep fried Mars bar originated at a chip shop in Stonehaven, near this lovely castle ruin pictured on the left.  It's foods like this that have gotten Scotland the reputation for unhealthy food, but I have to say that pretty much everything I ate in Scotland surprised me in a most positive way!  

I started off in Aberdeen on the east coast and headed toward Inverness, stopping in The Clockhouse Inn in Tomintoul for a bite to eat.  Sitting in this restaurant, I was right on the Highland Whiskey Trail, just a few miles from both the Glenfiddich and Glenlivet distilleries.   I wanted to try an Irn Bru (pronounced "Iron Brew") which is one of the most popular soft drinks in Scotland, kind of like a bright pale orange cream soda (you can see the glass pictured behind the bowl of soup).  Irn Bru has a reputation for unhealthy/controversial ingredients and colorants but seems to be quite loved nonetheless.  I'm not big on soft drinks but it was good.  Lunch was a Mushroom Soup made with locally picked wild chanterelles - delicious.   My husband had a Scottish Breakfast/Brunch - this was early in the trip before he had completely burned out on it.  The typical Scottish Breakfast is a farm egg, bacon, grilled mushrooms, grilled tomatoes (typically two halves), sometimes a Scottish pancake, and black pudding (I'll come back to this in a minute...).    Now, the bacon you get there is not the same fatty crisped cut you get here - it's more like a slice of ham.  And black pudding, well, it's one of those things where you don't want to ask "what is it?"   It's a sausage of cooked pig's blood - the outside is blackened to various degrees and the inside is a burgundy/maroon color.  Every butcher has their own recipe, so the flavor varies from place to place.  Did I try it?  Yes of course!  It was good and tasted just like a hushpuppy, of all things.

Here to the left is a view into a Scottish bakery window.  On the top left are bannocks, which are basically wheat flatbreads, kind of like a very thick pita bread.  The Scots would say it's like a flat wide scone, but scones (pictured on the far right) are more like a round biscuit and not the dense sweet scones we're used to in the US.  To the right of the bannocks are Scottish pancakes - much like our own pancakes or like a crumpet.

That night we made it to Thurso which is a small fishing town on the northern tip of Scotland.  We were taking a morning ferry to Orkney, a cluster of islands north of the Scottish mainland.  Orkney is fascinating for a number of things, including 5,000-year-old neolithic villages and circles of standing stones (like Stonehenge).   I'll get to Orkney later on, but that night we took advantage of the fabulous fresh fish in Thurso.  I was a little thrown by the ambience of the restaurant to which our innkeeper sent us.   It was called Le Bistro,  filled with quite a few Italians, and Billy Joel's Uptown Girl was playing on the speakers.  Kind of a culture mash.  We ordered a line-caught sea bass with lemon butter and garlic ( it came whole - as the waitress said, " just the head is cut off")  and some steamed North Sea Haddock with a little herb dressing.    The fish was all excellent, fresh, flakey, and perfectly cooked.  Like we all know, when fish is fresh, you just don't have to do much to it - it's wonderful.  It was also the first time we'd spotted a green vegetable in two days - some overcooked broccoli.   While the food was quite good so far, the lack of vegetables was already noticeable...  Dinner was finished with some whiskey from the local Pulteney distillery.

At Le Bistro, like most restaurants in Scotland, the menu usually has traditional fare along with some international flavor.  Pretty much all throughout Great Britain you can find a host of very good Indian restaurants and most menus will usually feature some sort of curry.  On menus, I saw everything from curry to Moroccan couscous, even Tex-Mex fajitas.  The one thing we realized was that more traditional restaurants seemed to close pretty early - some had a last seating as early as 6 pm!  So if you're looking for dinner at 9 pm, the Indian restaurants generally stay open much later and we took advantage of that a time or two. 

After our trips to the islands, we continued our trek across the Highlands.  As we finally came back to Aberdeen, we crashed at the Dunavon House near the airport.  After a long day of visiting castles and ruins, I was really looking forward to a nice meal and I was a little disappointed when my husband suggested we eat at the hotel's restaurant.  I'd walked by and it definitely had a divey pub feel.  Really, here??  He said that the lady that runs the place assured him it's the best place around.  Well, OK...   What can I say - I won't be so quick to judge in the future because I sat down to one of the best meals I'd had in weeks.   It started off with a Mushroom Cap with Sun Dried Tomato and Goat Cheese over greens.  It was a portobello cap, grilled to perfection, filled with tangy whole sun dried tomatoes, topped with a grilled round of Brie, and drizzled with an herbed olive oil.  And it was served over real greens - not the shredded iceberg lettuce to which I'd become accustomed, but gourmet lettuces and frisee!   We ooh-ed and ahh-ed as we ate it, savoring each bite.  It wasn't until I had come home and tried to recreate it myself that I realized what very simple magic the chef had orchestrated.  The mushroom was perfectly cooked and not watery, and the Brie was panfried but not soft and oily, the greens were still crisp against the warm mushroom - just wonderful.   My entree was.....drum roll....chicken stuffed with haggis.  Yes, of course I had to have haggis.  I'd had it served to me before as a slice, but this was really the way to go.  The dish was Balmoral Chicken, which is  chicken breast stuffed with haggis and covered with a yummy whiskey cream sauce.  Haggis is like a cross between sausage and seasoned minced meat...seasoned, nutty, and savory.    Traditionally, it's made of organ meats (heart, liver, lung) of a sheep cooked in an animal stomach, but in modern times more likely in a casing.   In full disclosure, I have to say that I'm not a red-meat-eater, but I ate the haggis and really liked it.  You just have to make a point of never ever reading the recipe for haggis in detail.   I looked up to see my husband staring at me.  "You know," he said, "I never thought I'd see the day when I'd sit across from you and watch you wolf down haggis."

You really can't get haggis in the US except for one or two USDA-approved companies - my understanding is that the USDA has pretty much banned it for various reasons.

I really enjoyed the meal - the plate was done nicely and there were even some vegetables! Even though it reminded me a little of cafeteria-style, it was the most variety of vegetables I'd seen on a plate in about 10 days.  The chicken sat on mashed potatoes and was was topped with handmade sweet potato chips and fresh thyme.  It was all delicious.

Portobello with Sundried Tomato and Brie Over Greens

2 portobello caps
10-12 pieces of jarred Sun Dried Tomatoes in Olive Oil
Brie, a 1/2-inch thick round (available during the holidays at TJ's) or just slice 1/2-inch thick pieces from a wedge
1 tsp finely chopped basil (or 1 cube Frozen Basil)
Organic Herb Salad Mix or other greens

1.) Add about 1 Tbsp olive oil from the jar of sun dried tomatoes to a pan over medium heat.  Add the portobellos and saute for about 6 minutes until beginning to get soft. 
2.) With the gill-side of the cap facing up, place 5-6 pieces of sun dried tomatoes in the cap and heat for an additional minute until mushroom is soft.  Cover the pan if needed to increase heat.
3.) Place a big handful of greens in each of two bowls and place one cap in each bowl. 
4.) Wipe the pan, and heating over high heat, quickly pan-fry a few slices of Brie on each side and add on top of each cap.
5.) Mix 1-2 Tbsp of oil from the jar with the basil and drizzle on both caps. Serve immediately. 

Makes two (large) servings