Cullen Skink Soup

Cullen Skink is a soup which originated from a small town called Cullen in Morayshire, Scotland. I used to live maybe thirty minutes up the road from there. Made with haddock, potatoes and onions it is lovely warming soup for cold days.

Rather ironically a “skink” is traditionally a soup made of shin of beef. But in this case, Cullen Skink, is made from Smoke Haddock. I sampled this delightful soup in Cullen for the first time, it was a small fish & chip shop, famous in the local area for its excellent Cullen Skink. If you are every lucky enough to be in the vacinity of Cullen I do suggest you go and track this wonderful place down.

There are various versions of this recipe available online – some of which contain cream, which I might add, is neither traditional or required. Traditionally the recipe for this soup is very simple and , in my humble opinion, is far superior.

Ingredients

Smoked Haddock
Water
1 Onion
1 pint of milk
Mashed Potato
Salt and pepper
Chopped parsley
25g butter

Instructions

1. Skin the smoked haddock and cover with just enough boiled water to cover it.
2. Bring to the boil and then add the chopped onion.
3. Remove the haddock once it’s cooked and remove the bones. Remove the head and tail.
4. Break up the fish into a dish and replace the bones into the pot and boil for one hour.
5. Strain the stock and put back to the boil. Boil the milk in a separate pot and then add to the stock along with the fish.
6. Add the salt and boil for several minutes then add the mashed potatoes until you get a nice consistency.
7. Add the butter, pepper and chopped parsley