I am from USA. I have questions about Scottish cooking?

Question

There are some nice recipies from my book, The Best Of Scottish Cooking ( Dione Pattulio).
Many from the 'sweets' and 'baking' chapters refer to 'syrup'. Is this just a simple sugar syrup, and if so, what is the sugar to water ratio. or something entirely specific.? And then, one recipe measured out 'a teacup of sugar'. Is a teacup the same as a standard cup measure? Now, Aberdeen Butteries, recipe refers to 8oz 'strong flour'. What would be the translation for 'strong flour'. My guess is that it is NOT 'cake flour'. Would I be correct?
Scottland and the USA might both speak a form of English, but my cook book leaves little doubt about the differences between our two countries.
Any additional suggestions for what I might also encounter would be helpful. (Love haggis by-the-way. Want to make that too. I had it once many years ago and found it delicious and savory! It was served at a New Years dinner)
Speaking of New Years, have a happy upcoming 2007!
Much thanks!

Answer 1

Have you had a Scottish egg (Scotch Eggs)? It's a hard-boiled egg, shell removed, then wrap raw sausage around the egg, coat it in raw egg, bread it with cracker crumbs, then deep fry it. Sounds like a cholesterol bomb but it's good.

Answer 2

Here goes

Syrup in Uk means golden syrup. When we use US cook books we are encouraged to replace corn syrup with golden syrup.

A teacup is a cup holding 5 fluid ounces, perhaps 5 and 1/2 to 6 to the brim.

Strong flour is what we use for bread making. It has more gluten, so I suggest you use any flour you'd use for yeast bread making

Answer 3

When Scottish recipes refer to syrup they usually mean Tate and Lyle's Golden Syrup. Don't know if that's available in the states.

Strong flour means bread flour as opposed to cake flour.

I'm not too sure about the cup thing. I've never really understood what American cup measures are. But a teacup would hold about 8 fluid ounces, if that's any help.

Haggis isn't easy to make. No one in Scotland makes their own - we buy it from butchers (who make their own) or supermarkets (who sell brand names).

The best brand of haggis is McSween's. Again, no idea about its availability in your neck of the woods. Sorry.

Good luck with the Scottish cuisine. And have a great Hogmanay when it comes :-)

Answer 4

Lyles Golden Syrup is unique to the UK, well almost, I can get it at the US base at Ramstien in Germany. The cup size is different, so is the spoon size. You should be able to find a conversion chart online. Tempretures in UK recipes are normially in C not F. Did you also know that a US gallon is different to a UK gallon and that the US also uses different size paper for computer printers. Ours is A4.

Answer 5

Sorry, i have no more to add to the above answers but i wanted to thankyou for giving me a good laugh today by putting a question about Scottish cooking in the Ethnic Cuisine section.

Answer 6

In Scotland they invented the deep-fried Mars bar (y'know, the chocolate and caramel bar) which you can buy in fish&chip shops. They have one of the world's unhealthiest diets and their health statistics show it - they eat the largest amount of sweets of anyone in the world ('candy' to you). If you fancy a haggis, remember Groundskeeper Willie in The Simpsons: "Get yer haggis, right here! Chopped heart and lungs boiled in a wee sheep's stomach! Tastes as good as it sounds. Good for what ails ya!". How long is 'The Best of Scottish Cooking' - just a leaflet?

Answer 7

usaully syrup refers to golden syrup, has a er nuttier toastier flavor then pure simple syrup.

Very popular in england.

You can usaully sub corn syrup instead.

Answer 8

Strong flour is high gluten flour.