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Moreen Simpson: I’ve stumbled upon the secret to world’s best cullen skink

When you spend hours making cullen skink and it ends up tasting like fishy dishwater, there's always a way to fix it.

Don't knock the power of a tin of soup in a pinch. Image: Helen Hepburn
Don't knock the power of a tin of soup in a pinch. Image: Helen Hepburn

I suspect the EE is stalking me.

Last Thursday, the very day I was cooking one of my favourite meals for a special guest the next day, the food and drink section was highlighting one of the Neest’s most delicious delicacies, cullen skink soup, and the various eatooteries serving it.

In truth, it’s on the menu almost a’wye because it’s such a winner with proper scoffers. Mind you, it’s one of those dishes which is different just about every time you order it. Sometimes spoon-stand-up ower thick, sometimes watery and tasteless, sometimes too salty, sometimes nae enough fish.

My ideal is slightly thick, wee chunks o’ tatties, flakes of smoked haddock, dusting of parsley. Served wi’ fine bread and lashin’s of butter.

Nae mony younger folk ken this, but the “skink” bittie actually comes from a low-fat cattle cut I first came across aged 17, when I’d caught the jandies after an all-coach holiday to Sorrento. (Oor balcony owerlooked the basement kitchen, far we spied scurryin’ rats.)

Once hame and affa yella, the doc kept me oot o’ hospital when mum pledged to feed me fat-free (to salve the liver) food. And, apparently, skink (shin of beef) soup – bought at Cain’s or Herd’s the Butcher in Rosemount – loaded with veggies was my life-saver for weeks. Having Googled it, I see Herd’s at the top of Rosemount still sell it. Must get some soon.

An inviting bowl of cullen skink, served at The Bothy Bistro in Burghead, Moray. Image: Jason Hedges/DC Thomson

It was a few years before I dived into a bowl of the seafood version, thankfully me nae still resembling its golden hue. How could I not lap it up when “yella fish” – poached in milk wi’ tatties on the side – was a regular of mum’s on a Friday night? Just a teeny, tiny bittie from bein’ a full-blown cullen skink. And she didnae even know it.

Searching for the crème de la Cullen

Scroll on the years. My ex-news editor from decades ago – the lovely Jimmy, aged a phenomenally fit and with-it 101 – is a cullen skink fan, so I resolved to serve it when he came for lunch last Friday.

Ken my ain recipe, but resolved to find the crème de la Cullen, so on to Google. Went for a traditional all-milk, dotty cream, onions and leek, diced tatties, un-dyed haddock. Did it painstakingly to the recipe – apparently voted somewye the best in the Neest.

Came to that crucial moment to taste. Fit the…? Flavour came there none. In spite o’ my travails ower the past hour, fit I’d concocted was like fishy dishwater. Panic, panic.

I ended up adding three Baxters batches to my tasteless brew. End result? It was absolutely THE best cullen skink

Into the garage, where dwells my overspill of tins. Yes – so, sorry readers, (dra’ yer een awa if ye’re o’ a nervous cookery disposition ) – to my buckshie tins of Baxters… Yup: cullen skink soup. Inspiration! How to put the proper skink into skink!

Tipped in one tin, tasted – better, but nae right. Tipped in second… I ended up adding three Baxters batches to my tasteless brew. End result? It was absolutely THE best cullen skink (better than Baxters’!) that’s ever been served to man. Jimmy adored it. I meant to give him a carton home, but I forgot. Next time.


Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press and Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970

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