Wednesday 19 December 2018

Scotch Scallops

Around a month ago, on a slightly better day in the midst of a rotten bug, and feeling like plain, simple comfort food, I had a go at making Scotch Scallops. I had never heard of them before but the last time I visited my Grandma in Newcastle (originally from Lancashire) she described what her own mother used to make. All she could say is that she finely sliced potato, fried it in a little butter with some onion, topped up with water then covered and cooked on the hob for about an hour. Were they nice? I asked. "Delicious" was the answer. She also said she tried cooking them herself and they never tasted quite as good (as seems to always be the case I think).

I told my Glaswegian friend I was going to make Scotch Scallops that evening. I'm still not sure she is convinced I knew what I was talking about. "From the sea?" She insists again. I explain that in Yorkshire - and it seems Lancashire too - the name scallops is applied to a sort of fried potato. Our local chip shop as a child sold scallops for 17p, and you got two steamy batter discs with hot mashed potato inside, dripping of course then in salt, vinegar and tomato sauce.

I do some investigating online into Scotch Scallops and find a small number of threads on various local Lancashire forums, with titles that reminisce over the good old days. "Ooooo, who remembers..." and such like. There seems to be, even just within Lancashire, quite a variety of fried potato recipes, some referring to Scotch Scallops. There is variety within this too - some add bacon, others add mince. Some use stock in place of water, others like to brown off the final dish under the grill.

I like the inventiveness of older recipes, and how people were often so creative with such simple ingredients, making the most of what they had. We get an organic fruit and veg box delivery and it is seasonal, so at the moment there's lots of winter veg: onions, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, celeriac etc. I am having to be quite creative myself trying to find the best dishes that suit these ingredients.

So here it is - my go at making Scotch Scallops. I had no quantities to go on, and I wanted to make it as close to the version my Grandma made as I could. I found a recipe that sounded pretty much the same - but then still no quantities. What ratio of onion to potato I wonder? And I still wasn't sure on what the final consistency should be like. In the end I decided on:

Equal parts of onion to potato (as we had lots of onions that needed using up). The onion roughly chopped and the potato thinly sliced (skin left on the potato - probably not traditional but more nutritious and how we tend to cook potatoes these days.)
Fry the onion in a knob of butter in a wide saucepan before adding the potatoes. Add enough water to just cover, lid on and cook on a low heat for an hour. I had to top up the pan with a little more water fairly regularly. Add salt and pepper.

The final result was delicious. The potato almost completely broke down in my version, so it was more like a silky, oniony, thinner  mashed potato. I also added the slightly browned bits that stuck to the pan. We had it with veggie sausages and some greens. Here's some pictures:



A week or so after this meal, I asked my mum if she knew about Scotch Scallops, and if Grandma ever cooked them for her. Apparently they had them all the time (and she thought they were delicious, even if my Grandma doubted they were as good!).

I haven't forgotten another meal passed down the generations - I still want to give "mock crab" a go GB, when I firm up the recipe with you again. 


11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Sorry but missed a bit out - I will have another try. Your scallop recipe reminded me of a recipe for scallops my mother used to make. (Your Great Grandma). She came from the Lincolnshire Fens. She used to slice the potatoes fairly thickly and dip them in batter and then fry them until cooked. We would eat them with a fried egg and salt and vinegar. Delicious.
    As for mock crab. She used to chop up left over tomatoes and onions and fry them gently in a little butter. When they were almost cooked she would add a good handful of grated cheese and stir until it was melted, then take the pan off the heat, drop in an egg and beat swiftly until the egg had cooked into the mixture. You are quite right - I have never managed to get it as tasty as it was when I was a child.

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    1. Your mother's version sounds like what you could buy at our chip shop! They were delicious. I shy away from batter and deep frying, but how yummy to eat freshly made at home.

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  3. Scotch Scallops was an essential in our house in the late 1940's right through to the 1970's when mother died. Basically it was sliced potatoes and onions in equal amounts placed in a dish, Pyrex oven dish is ideal, and covered in salted water and sprinkled with pepper if desired. Within the layers mother used to intersperse slices of streaky bacon, leaving some to place on top. This was then cooked in the oven for an hour or so until the surface bacon was crispy and the potatoes and onion cooked to a soft texture. Served steaming hot accompanied by green peas. Delicious and a real filler in the days when we had little money for more expensive foods, but just as nourishing and delicious. If you like you can add an OXO cube to the potatoes for extra flavour. Check regularly to ensure the water level is OK.

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  4. Brilliant, My dad used to make this, Im going to have a go tomorrow loved it when we were young !!

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  5. Mmmmm...we used to have Scotch Scollops pretty much once a week when I was a child (like mentioned , money was tight and we had an enormous back garden so we used to grow all our veg so mum used to cook things like this , (Po)'tata Hash , Lancashire Hot Pot etc) . She did however cook it slightly differently to your recipe though. You were correct in that the ratio of onions to spuds is roughly 50/50 , she would never fry the spuds though . They would be thinly sliced , same with the onions and all placed into a big pan , cover this with water and add a knob of beef dripping into the pan. This would then be heated and simmered for 2-3 hours (add a little more water along the way if needed) , after which time the spuds should have "lobbed" into the cooking water creating a thick almost soupy consistency - think of a really thick Leek and Potato soup but only with onions instead and you would be on the right track! We used to have ours with either grilled smoked bacon or a couple of slices of corned beef , salt , pepper and a squirt of HP !

    Not had this for years - but am going make it for Tea later this week in celebration of your post reminding me of it :)

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  7. Wow! Was I surprised to read about Scotch Scallops. I don’t know anyone else outside our family, who has heard of, them. I am a Lancashire lass, now living in Yorkshire, my partner has been introduced to them. What’s for tea? Scotch Scallops tonight!
    DJ

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  8. Anne Marie Hawkins25 January 2023 at 05:46

    I know I'm late to the party but came across your blog when I was thinking sentimentally about food eaten in childhood and was looking for "slushed 'uns". This is the name we gave, in our part of Lancashire, to what you call scallops. I guess the name might be to do with the slushy appearance of what surrounds the potato and onion in the pan, but the name was in general use in my area (Colne), not just in our house.
    Besides the potato, onion, seasoning and a bit of stock, my mother used to add milk to the pan.
    It strikes me that, particularly if milk is used, this is a cheap, quick and fairly nutritious dish for 2023 when a lot of people are struggling to make ends meet.
    A different aspect of the topic: I would like to see these regional variations in names preserved - it's a loss to our language and culture when they die out.
    I've been looking for a definitive recipe for "torpedoes" but find few references to them, let alone the recipe. These delicious savouries seem now to be called Lancashire pasties. They differ from the Cornish variety in their filling, which is minced beef, diced carrot, onion, potato and peas. I'm an ex-pat living in south Wales and sometimes do a big Torpedo bake, and when I give them to friends I make sure they know their "proper" name - torpedoes. Even in Lancashire the name seems to have fallen out of general use.

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  9. A latecomer myself to this but I'm pleased to discover this simple, filling and nourishing dish is more widely known than it seemed. Pre-internet I had never met anyone who had even heard of it, let alone eat it. Post-internet, I came across people talking online about things they called Scotch Scallops or Scotch Collops but neither were what we are talking about here. I've finally found other people who know what this is!!!
    My mother got the recipe from her mother way back in the 30s up Lancashire/Merseyside way and served it up to us regularly, we loved it. Like many, money didn't wash around our household in excess and with a large family she had to use the lessons in frugality she learned in those Depression Era days of her own childhood.
    She fried the onion but not the potato, which kept the half inch discs intact when cooked. She fried the onion until browned in dripping or lard, which gave the dish colour - pretty sure an Oxo went in too. Then she added the potato slices, water, salt and pepper, covered the pan and cooked until the potato was soft.
    We'd have it with sausages or bacon or even Sainsbury's Breakfast Slices! If you don't remember them from the 70s you'll have to Google them. Pretty sure they don't sell them any more.

    The other everytime-accompaniments would be slices of buttered white bread and brown sauce. The funny thing is, there's some half decent cooks in the family and not one of us, despite the apparent advantages of better cooking equipment, has ever been able to even once produce a pan of Scotch Scallops of the quality our mother did.

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  10. Wow, I have just googled scotch scallops as I thought no one else I knew had actually had it. My mum (a Lancashire lass, god rest her soul) used to do them in the stock left over from the chicken, in a Pyrex dish in the oven. Then 30 minutes before the end she used to top with smoked bacon and put it back in the oven.
    We always had it with peas and bread and butter (to dip up the juices) delicious 😋

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