Alice's Cullen Skink and Ardbeg Sourdough Bread

This recipe, well these two recipes, are a homage to last year's Whisky tour of Islay. It is my own version of the fishy Scottish delight. You don't necessarily have to make the bread due to the complex recipe and unavailability of the flour, but you can always make a normal bread and splash a little whisky in with the water! In the process of grinding malted barley to make single-malt whisky you get husks, grist and flour. I found this out from Dougie at the Ardbeg Distillery near Port Ellen. He also told us that each distillery uses slightly different ratios of husks, grist and flour to make the whisky and showed us an example of each. Noticing a lot of flour hanging about, and being a cook; I naturally asked if anyone had tried cooking with the flour. As the malted barley is heavily peat-smoked not many people had. So, at the end of the tour I cheekily asked for a small bag of the flour to experiment with. So if your reading this Dougie - thank you! You were an excellent guide and you yourself commented that you thought it would work best as a sourdough bread, so that's what I created! I would suggest you enjoy this dish with a glass of Ardbeg on the side and surprise yourself how well whisky goes with food - it's something I've been experimenting with a lot lately!

The Bread

In order to make sourdough you first need to make a Starter Dough. This takes five days and it's easier to make in large batches as once you've made in you can keep it in a jar in the fridge for another couple of weeks and keep taking what you need from it. You can also freeze it. I will write the Starter Dough recipe here, but  will also put a copy in the 'Basics' section. I appreciate this recipe is a rather lengthy, time-consuming affair that requires a lot of patience, but it's definitely worth the results!

Starter Dough Ingredients (makes a batch):

-Day One:

5 tbsp live full-fat yoghurt, 6floz skimmed milk

-Day Two:

4oz strong white flour

-Day Four:

6oz strong white flour, 3 1/2floz water, 3 tbsps milk

-Day Five:

5 1/2oz strong white flour, 5 1/2floz water

Starter Dough Method:

1. On day one heat the milk in a saucepan over a gentle/medium heat. Place yoghurt into a bowl and gradually stir in warmed milk until combined. Cover and leave in a warm place until thickened (12-24 hours).
2. Day two, stir the dough then incorporate the flour evenly into the yoghurt/milk. Cover and leave at room temperature for another 24 hours.
3. On day four, add the flour and water and mix thoroughly, cover and repeat on day five. 
4. Take what you need for the recipe you're doing then put the rest in a jar in the fridge, feeding it every five days by mixing together equal parts of starter, flour and water.

Ardbeg Sourdough Bread Ingredients (makes 2 loaves):

500g/11lb 2oz flour (here I used all the Ardbeg flour I had then topped up the remainder with strong bread flour)

300g/10 1/2oz sourdough starter (see above)

250ml/9floz water (and a splash of whisky too - if you like!)

10g/1/4oz brown sugar

10g/1/4oz salt

Oil

Ardbeg Sourdough Bread Method:

1. Mix together all the flour, starter and water, whisky and add the sugar and salt. Turn out and knead (preferably on a granite slab like the amazing one Paddy bought me for Christmas) for ten minutes until the dough can be stretched so thinly that it becomes transparent.
2. Place in an oiled bowl, cover with a damp, clean tea towel and leave to prove for three hours.
3. Turn out onto a clean, floured surface and knock back. Portion into 2 spherical loaves. Flour each orb heavily and and place in a bowl lined with a heavily floured tea towel. Leave to prove for a further 2 1/2 hours.
4. Preheat the oven to 240 degrees (or as high as you can get to that - mine only goes to 220!). To create steam, put ice cubes and/or cold water into a large baking tin and place in the bottom of the oven. Keep a check on this and re-fill if needed. Heat a baking stone or tray in the oven.
5. Turn loaves out onto heated tray/stone and score each loaf two or three times along the top before popping them back into the oven with the tray. 
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a crust has formed and when the bottom of the loaves are tapped they sound hollow. On my first attempt at sourdough it actually took quite a while to cook all the way through, but I only made one large loaf. Now I  tend to stick to two smaller loaves as the crust doesn't burn while the inside is cooking. If you have a really hot oven this shouldn't be a problem. Lift and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm if you like!

Before serving the soup!

Alice's Cullen Skink

As I mentioned in the previous introduction, this is my own version of Cullen Skink, the main departure is more variety of fish and less potato! This goes exceptionally with the bread if you're looking to prepare an Outer-Hebridean whisky feast!

Ingredients:

Around 600-800g fish of your choice (including smoked) - I didn't actually weighed my fish and just did it by eye to serve two with a little left over. I used smoked haddock, smoked cod, small prawns and pollock. Try to use sustainable fish when possible

1 bay leaf

Knob of butter

Chicken stock and white wine - again judge this by eye as to how much you'd want

1 onion, finely chopped

1 leek, finely chopped

2 potatoes, unpeeled and cut into edible chunks

Around 500ml whole milk

1/2 tsp cornflour

Chives

Salt and pepper

Tiny drop of fish sauce (optional)

 Method:

1. Gently blanch the fish in the stock, bay leaf and wine until cooked. Drain and set aside both the stock and the fish.
2. Melt the butter in a different, large, pan. Soften the onions and leeks gently for around 10 minutes. You could add a small amount of garlic here if desired - but you don't want to overpower the subtle flavours. Season with pepper.
3. Add the potato chunks and coat in butter. Pour in the stock/wine and simmer until the potato is tender.
4. Discard the bay leaf, flake in the fish and add the milk. Here is also where you'd add the fish sauce, if using.
5. Season to taste and finish with a generous sprinkle of chives. You could also use parsley and/or spring onions. Serve with Ardbeg bread and a wee dram of Ardbeg Uigeadail!

Thanks Dougie!