We love this Cullen Skink recipe. One of the favourites among the ProWare staff of all our 6 nations Rugby recipes, this hearty Scottish soup will surely be enjoyed by all. This soup is very similar to an American/Canadian chowder but has a more smokier taste to it.

When making this recipe it's best to use un-dyed fish, in fact you can also substitute any smoked fish you wish! A yellow looking dyed haddock is available at most supermarkets but the colour comes from a dye rather than the smoking process. You can find un-dyed smoked haddock at Waitrose, Ocado or a fish monger, it is kiln smoked rather than ‘liquid smoked’.

Cullen skink is very simple with only a few ingredients and as such we were very pleased with the delicious result. There isn't even garlic in it and I love garlic! It's definitely not lacking without it.

Our 26cm Copper Base Sauté Pan is the perfect pan for poaching the haddock in this recipe. It has a larger capacity than it's Copper Tri-ply equivalent, glass lid so you can see exactly when it starts to boil as well as having much deeper sides therefore enabling you to poach the large portion of haddock in one go.

You also don't need to eat a large bowl of it as it's very filling and we like that it's not too rich at the same time too. Enjoy!

Cullen Skink - Scottish Smoked Haddock Soup

Serves: 4-5 Prep time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 900g Smoked Haddock
• 1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 leek, finely chopped
• 1L whole milk
• 30ml butter
• 500-600g potatoes (we used 3 medium sized potatoes), peeled and cubed
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 bay leaf
• Chopped chives
• A small amount of butter/oil for frying

Equipment

• Knife
• Chopping board
• 26cm Copper Base Sauté Pan
• Copper Base 24cm Stockpot or 20cm Saucepan
• Wooden spoon
• Slotted spoon
• Ladle
• Peeler
• Potato Masher

Cooking Method

1. Lay the fish in the sauté pan and cover with milk. Add the bay leaf, cover and gently bring to the boil. Once the milk has boiled, the fish should be cooked. Remove a piece of fish to test, it should easily flake. Then remove the rest of the fish from the pan and set aside to cool.
2. Place the stockpot/saucepan over a low to medium heat and melt the butter. Add the onion and leek then sweat the vegetables with the lid on without browning them for about 10 minutes.
3. Once softened, add the potato and stir to coat with butter. Pour in 700ml of the haddock cooking liquid, 250ml of water and add the bay leaf. Bring to a simmer and cook until the potato is tender.
4. While the potato is cooking, flake the haddock into bite sized pieces removing any skin and bones as you go.
5. Once the potato is tender use your slotted spoon to remove about 1/3 of the potato and leek mixture and set to one side in a bowl.
6. Discard the bay leaf and mash the remaining potatoes in the pan until the soup has thickened to your liking. Now add 3/4 of the haddock to the saucepan and return the un-mashed potatoes, onions and leeks.
7. Give your saute pan a quick rinse out and heat some oil/butter in the bottom of the pan to a high heat and quickly fry the remaining haddock until slightly crisp on the edges.
8. Season the soup to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Top each bowl with the crispy haddock mixture, a sprinkling of chives and enjoy with a slice of sourdough bread.