A Highland cow standing on a rocky green hillside in Scotland

Robrub Kitchie, Scotland

Scottish Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Cullen skink, Scotch broth, shortbread and the wee Scotch pie, cooked the way the crofts and city tenements always cooked them. Butter, beef dripping and tallow do the work here. No seed oils, ever.

Read the recipes

How this kitchie works

Three rules, kept the auld way

Scottish home cooking was built on what the land, the byre and the loch could give. These three rules run through every recipe on this site.

  1. I

    Frae Land an Loch

    From the land and the loch

    Oats, barley, neeps, tatties, lamb and smoked fish. The Scottish larder is short but deep, and every dish here starts from it rather than from a packet.

  2. II

    Guid Fats Anely

    Good fats only

    Butter, beef dripping, tallow and lard carried Scottish cooking for centuries. We cook with those, and with olive oil or ghee where a lighter hand is needed. Vegetable oil never enters the pot.

  3. III

    Slaw an Canny

    Slow and careful

    A broth wants hours, shortbread wants a cool oven and patience. Nothing on this site is rushed, because the old dishes simply do not work when they are.

The recipes

Six dishes from the Scottish table

One recipe open at a time, the way a well thumbed kitchen notebook falls open at a single page. Every one is free of vegetable oil.

Smoked fish served on a stone platter

The smoky fish soup of Cullen, a fishing town on the Moray coast. Undyed smoked haddock, floury potatoes and onion are simmered in milk and finished with a generous piece of butter melting on top.

Ingredients

  • 400 g undyed smoked haddock
  • 50 g salted butter
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 leek, white part only, sliced
  • 500 g floury potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 300 ml water
  • 600 ml whole milk
  • 100 ml double cream
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Sea salt, black pepper and chopped chives

Method

  1. Put the haddock in a wide pan with the water and bay leaf, bring to a gentle simmer and poach for 4 minutes. Lift the fish out, keep the liquid, and flake the flesh, discarding skin and bones.
  2. Melt the butter in a heavy pot over medium heat and sweat the onion and leek for 8 minutes until soft, without letting them colour.
  3. Add the potatoes and the reserved poaching liquid, then simmer for 12 to 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
  4. Mash a few potato pieces against the side of the pot so the soup thickens naturally.
  5. Pour in the milk and cream, return the flaked haddock and warm everything through gently, never letting it boil.
  6. Season with salt and pepper, scatter over the chives and serve each bowl with a small piece of butter melting in the middle.
Plated meat with potato and dark greens on a white plate

The Burns Night plate. Peppery haggis served beside buttered mashed swede and creamy mashed potato, all three enriched with proper butter and a little cream.

Ingredients

  • 800 g haggis, from a good butcher
  • 600 g floury potatoes, peeled and quartered
  • 500 g swede (neeps), peeled and diced
  • 120 g salted butter, divided
  • 100 ml double cream
  • 2 tbsp whole milk
  • Freshly grated nutmeg
  • Coarsely ground black pepper
  • Sea salt
  • Chopped chives, to finish

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 180 C. Wrap the haggis tightly in foil, set it in a roasting dish with a splash of water and bake for about 1 hour until piping hot all the way through.
  2. Boil the swede in salted water for 20 to 25 minutes until completely tender, then drain well and let it steam dry.
  3. Boil the potatoes in salted water for 15 to 18 minutes until soft, then drain and let them steam dry in the warm pan.
  4. Mash the swede with half the butter, salt and plenty of black pepper, keeping it slightly coarse.
  5. Mash the potatoes with the remaining butter, the cream and the milk until smooth, then season and grate over a little nutmeg.
  6. Open the haggis, spoon it onto warm plates with the neeps and tatties alongside, and finish with chives and one more thin slice of cold butter over the tatties.
A fluted bowl of raw grains with a spoon on a pale cloth

A full meal in one pot. Lamb on the bone, pearl barley and winter roots simmered slowly until the barley swells and the broth turns silky. It is even better the next day.

Ingredients

  • 700 g lamb neck or shoulder, on the bone
  • 1 tbsp beef dripping or butter
  • 100 g pearl barley, rinsed
  • 60 g dried split peas, rinsed
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 1 small swede, diced
  • 2 leeks, sliced, whites and greens kept apart
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 litres cold water
  • A handful of kale or cabbage, shredded
  • Sea salt, black pepper and chopped parsley

Method

  1. Melt the dripping in a large heavy pot and brown the lamb pieces well on all sides.
  2. Pour in the cold water, bring slowly to a simmer and skim any foam. Add the barley and split peas, partly cover and simmer gently for 1 hour 30 minutes.
  3. Add the carrots, swede, onion and the white parts of the leeks, and simmer for another 30 minutes.
  4. Lift out the lamb, pull the meat from the bones, shred it and return it to the pot, discarding the bones.
  5. Stir in the kale and the leek greens and cook for a final 10 minutes, until the barley is plump and the broth slightly thickened.
  6. Season generously, stir through the parsley and let the pot rest for 10 minutes before ladling into deep bowls.
A linen sack of flour with a small sieve on a grey worktop

Butter, sugar and flour, and nothing to hide behind. The rice flour gives the true sandy bite, and a cool oven keeps the fingers pale gold rather than browned.

Ingredients

  • 250 g cold salted butter, cubed
  • A little extra butter, for the tin
  • 110 g caster sugar
  • 2 tbsp caster sugar, for dusting
  • 300 g plain flour
  • 60 g rice flour, or cornflour
  • A good pinch of fine sea salt

Method

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until just creamy. Stop before it turns light and fluffy, or the texture will suffer.
  2. Sift in both flours and the salt, then bring everything together into a smooth dough with as little working as possible.
  3. Press the dough into a buttered tin to about 1 cm thick, prick all over with a fork, score into fingers and chill for 30 minutes. Meanwhile heat the oven to 150 C.
  4. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until pale gold. Shortbread should never be brown.
  5. Cut along the scored lines again while warm and dust with the extra caster sugar.
  6. Leave to cool completely in the tin before lifting out. It keeps for a week in an airtight tin.
Fresh raspberries piled close together

Scotland's celebration dessert. Oats toasted in a knob of butter, folded through softly whipped cream with heather honey and whisky, then layered with fresh raspberries.

Ingredients

  • 60 g pinhead or rolled oats
  • 15 g butter
  • 400 ml double cream
  • 3 tbsp heather honey, plus extra to serve
  • 3 tbsp Scotch whisky
  • 300 g fresh raspberries
  • A pinch of fine sea salt

Method

  1. Toast the oats in the butter in a small pan over medium heat, stirring, until golden and nutty. Tip onto a plate and cool completely.
  2. Crush a third of the raspberries with 1 tablespoon of the honey to make a loose, seedy sauce.
  3. Whip the cream to soft peaks, then fold in the rest of the honey, the whisky and the salt.
  4. Fold most of the cooled oats through the cream, keeping a spoonful back for the top.
  5. Layer crushed berries, cream and whole berries into four glasses, finish with the reserved oats and a thin thread of honey, and serve within the hour.
A golden baked pie with a decorated crust in a round dish

The wee pie of bakery counters and football grounds. A hot water crust made with lard, raised by hand, holding a filling of spiced minced lamb under its sunken lid.

Ingredients

  • 450 g plain flour
  • 180 g lard or beef dripping
  • 180 ml water
  • 1 tsp fine salt
  • 500 g minced lamb or mutton
  • 1 small onion, grated
  • Half a tsp ground mace
  • 1 tsp ground white pepper
  • 100 ml lamb or beef stock, plus hot gravy to serve
  • Sea salt and a little milk, to glaze

Method

  1. Bring the water, lard and salt to a boil, pour into the flour and mix to a smooth, warm dough.
  2. While the dough is still warm, set aside a third for the lids. Shape the rest around the base of straight sided glasses to raise six cases about 8 cm across, then let them firm up.
  3. Mix the lamb with the onion, mace, white pepper, salt and stock until well combined.
  4. Divide the filling between the cases, pressing it in level and leaving a small gap below the rim.
  5. Cut six lids, press them down onto the filling so the rim stands proud, cut a small hole in each centre and brush with milk.
  6. Bake at 180 C for 45 to 50 minutes until deep golden and crisp.
  7. Rest for 10 minutes, then serve hot with a little gravy poured through the hole in each lid.

Our kitchie

A quiet record of the Scottish table

Robrub Kitchie is an independent editorial project. We collect and retest traditional Scottish recipes, writing them down plainly so they can be cooked in an ordinary home kitchen.

The single editorial line that runs through everything is simple. These dishes were created long before refined vegetable oil existed, so we cook them the way they were first cooked, with butter, beef dripping, tallow and lard, and with olive oil or ghee where a recipe genuinely benefits from it.

There is nothing for sale here. The site exists to keep a small, honest corner of Scotland's food culture written down and usable.

Some hae meat an canna eat, and some wad eat that want it, but we hae meat an we can eat, an sae the Lord be thankit.
The Selkirk Grace, attributed to Robert Burns