Our first taste of Edinburgh

When Shan was given the opportunity to complete his final medical elective in Edinburgh and I to join him, I instantly thought up a challenge!! For anyone that knows me – knows that I relish a challenge. I was given a traditional Scottish Cookbook by a friend in Colac after falling in love with her haggis meal she cooked. My challenge is to cook as many of the recipes as possible in our little kitchen of the apartment we have rented for the month and the even littler kitchen in our camper-van that we will travel in for the following month!

After 30 hours of non-stop transit from Melb to KL to Dubai to Gatwick to Edinburgh, we finally made it!

However, my bag did not quite make it.

This is not the first time Shan and I have made it half way around the world to find only Shan’s bag appear on the carousel and me being with a small handful of people remaining without bag – the first time was on our honeymoon in Morocco. At least this time round there was no language barrier and we did not have to return to the airport to collect it ourselves!

We arrived late at night and caught a bus close to the pub we had booked for the night. As we walked to the pub, there was a distinct waft of toasty malt in the air! From that moment I knew our Scottish Whiskey journey had begun!! Arriving just half and hour before close, we crashed for the night. We woke to a beautiful sunny Autumn morning! Dressed in Shan’s undies and outfit, I was ready for the day!

We began with our first traditional Scottish hot breakfast at the pub we stayed at for the night. According to the waitress, I was ‘hard core’ for ordering a bowl of porridge, toast and the hot breaky with the lot. Little did she know, this was to last me until dinner. I am also porridge fiend and was curious as to how my porridge measured up to the land of where oats is in just about every dish!

The porridge was a bowl of unsweetened instant oats and the hot breaky was the standard hot breaky with black pudding and . . . Potato Scones! I had come across Potato Scones in my recipe book, but it it looked nothing like I had imagined. Rather than the traditional round fluffy scone that I thought it would resemble, it actually looked like a doughy pancake cut into slices. I was a fan . . It was savoury, soft, and soaked up the yolky and baked bean sauce goodness!

It was decided, we would make these carb-loaded doughy morsels as our first recipe to cook to kick off my challenge.

The recipe only requiring potatoes, flour and salt, it was a good one to start with. The result was amazing! The texture was crispy on the outside and soft and doughy in the inside, accompanied by a fried egg and black pudding – we had nailed our first Traditional Scottish recipe.

With our first recipe a success and already falling for this stunning city, we know we are in for a jolly good time!