Skirlie with Mushrooms
Submitted by brian
Traditional Scottish skirlie made with oatmeal toasted in meat drippings alongside mushrooms and onions. A rustic side dish that doubles as a stuffing for roast lamb.
YIELD
4 servingsPREP
10 minCOOK
20 minREADY
30 minSkirlie is one of Scotland’s best-kept culinary secrets, and it starts with one non-negotiable ingredient: proper drippings from a roasted joint of meat.
Mushrooms (wild chanterelles if you can get them) fry in a bit of dripping until golden, then onions soften in the rest before coarse oatmeal gets tossed in to toast and soak up all that roasty, savory fat.
The oatmeal goes nutty and crisp, the mushrooms add earthiness, and the whole thing comes together in about 30 minutes.
Serve it hot as a side, or pack it into a boned shoulder of lamb as a stuffing that’ll make your Sunday roast unforgettable.
Kitchen Tips
- Use real meat drippings, not butter or oil. The drippings are the whole point of skirlie and give it a depth that nothing else can match
- Fry the mushrooms separately first and set them aside. Adding everything at once makes the pan too crowded and you’ll steam instead of fry
- Use coarse or pinhead oatmeal, not rolled oats. You want texture and bite, not porridge
- Season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Skirlie should be boldly seasoned
Ingredients
Directions
Skirlie is only worth making with good drippings from roasted meat.
Chrissie remembers that sometimes the cook at the big house would dole out, to people who wanted it, the wonderful dripping that had been used for the umpteen big roasts.
I like skirlie as a kind of risotto, with wild chanterelles that grow in profusion all over the island.
The mixture makes an excellent stuffing for a boned shoulder of lamb.
Wipe and slice the mushrooms.
Skin and slice the onion thinly.
Fry the mushrooms in 1 oz dripping in a wide frying pan.
Remove them and reserve.
Heat the rest of the dripping. Fry the onion. When the onions are soft but not brown, turn up the heat. Add the oatmeal, turn it in the drippings and brown a bit. Throw in the mushrooms. Add salt and black pepper to taste. Serve hot.
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