Homemade Stovies and Scottish Oatcakes

My desire to prepare stovies at New Year in KL could be likened to my wife's desire to cook crispy roast pork aka siew yuk at CNY in the UK. I am sure you will all agree no matter how fantastic the food is in any region you may visit or settle in around the world, sometimes you crave the food you were brought up on. Stovies was an ever present dish at our New Year family gatherings and I thought it appropriate that I made some this New Year for my family.

Stovies is a traditional Scottish potato and meat stew. Recipes vary widely across Scotland, even within families. Stovies, as I know it, contains potatoes, onions and leftover roast beef. I used duck fat for the first time as a replacement for butter or beef dripping or lard, simply because we had some leftover from the duck confit we cooked. In my opinion, stovies is best accompanied by oatcakes and beetroot.

Not knowing where to find oatcakes locally, we decided to bake some of our own. The oatcakes were very easy to prepare and bake and they turned out mighty fine.

Homemade Scottish oatcakes

Roast beef is a meal we enjoy at home fairly regularly. Normally we cook roast beef for 4 or 5 persons, and without fail, there will be no leftovers! Since just the two of us would be dining in this week, I was presented with the perfect opportunity to gather the prerequisite leftovers for my stovies.

Our delicious roast beef dinner

When we serve roast beef for dinner, I carve it relatively thin. However for the stovies, the leftover beef was cut into chunks and doused in leftover gravy (made from the juices recovered after roasting) and left to soak up all the flavour for a couple of days in the fridge.

Leftover roast beef

The cooking process for making stovies is fairly simple, so the next time you find yourself with some leftover roast beef, why not try this recipe.

Homemade Stovies Recipe

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 1 - 1 1/2 hr

Serves 4-5

Ingredients

Leftover roast beef, cut into thick chunks

10 potatoes, washed, peeled and thinly sliced

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 tbsp duck fat or butter/lard/beef dripping

300ml beef stock

Freshly ground salt and pepper, to taste

1. Heat duck fat in a large pot and add onions, gently cooking them until softened. Add the roast beef and season with the salt and pepper.

2. Cover with potato slices and add some stock depending on how moist you prefer the dish. I used 300ml in total, topping up as required while simmering.

3. Simmer on the hob on low heat for 1 hour. When cooked, stir up with a spoon.

4. Serve piping hot with oatcakes and beetroot (or alternatively oatcakes and a little tomato ketchup).

Scottish Oatcakes Recipe

30g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

65g medium oatmeal

30g butter

3 tbsp cold water

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan.

2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl. Add oatmeal and mix. Rub the butter in with fingers until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

3. Add 3 tbsp of cold water, mix to soft dough and knead until smooth.

4. Roll out on a surface sprinkled with oatmeal to about 5mm thick, then cut out approx. 15-20 circles of dough with a 5cm round cookie cutter.

5. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes until golden and leave to cool on wire rack.

6. Keep in an airtight container. Biscuits can keep for up to a week.

7. Before serving, if you find that the biscuit has softened, you can place them under a hot grill for 1-2 minutes to crisp them up. Do keep an eye on them as they can brown very quickly.