Nick Nairn is a champion of Scottish produce, and using quality ingredients has always been close to his heart.
For five generations, Graham’s The Family Dairy has been producing key ingredients for Scottish families’ breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner recipes. Indeed, half the households in Scotland buy Graham’s products every year.
The family farm, based in the Stirlingshire countryside, now produces 700,000 pints of milk every day, as well as 50 tonnes of butter and 50,000 litres of cream a week, making it Scotland’s largest independent dairy.
Why not try Nick Nairn’s recipes using some of Graham’s finest dairy products?
TARRAGON CHICKEN WITH CREAM, MUSHROOMS AND CHILLI BUTTER VEG
SERVES 2
2 tbsp olive oil
2 free-range chicken breasts, skinned
30g Graham’s unsalted butter
2-3 dried morels soaked in warm water for 15 minutes
30g chestnut mushrooms, quartered
100ml dry white wine
100ml brown chicken stock
100ml Graham’s Gold double cream
1 tbsp fresh tarragon, chopped
Maldon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
FOR THE CHILLI VEG
4 stalks tenderstem broccoli
4 asparagus
half courgette, sliced lengthways with a peeler
¼ fresh red chilli, finely sliced (seeds in)
1 tbsp olive oil
FOR THE POTATOES
200g new potatoes, cooked, skins on
a handful of chives chopped
15g Graham’s unsalted butter
Slice the chicken breasts vertically, into even-sized thin escalopes of about a centimetre in thickness, to give roughly 4 pieces per breast. Season with salt and pepper.
Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and add the oil. Add the chicken pieces ensuring they are not on top of each other. Leave them alone in the pan to allow a nice crust to form. Turn them over and cook for another 2-3 minutes as above.
Add the butter, the soaked morels (retain the liquid for later), and quartered chestnut mushrooms to the pan, moving them around in the butter to ensure they take on a nice colour.
Pour in the wine and deglaze using a heatproof spatula to scrape all the flavour and caramelised pieces from the bottom of the pan. Reduce the liquid by half, then add the stock plus 2 tablespoons of the strained mushroom soaking liquid and reduce by half again.
Add the cream and chopped tarragon and bring to a simmer. Further reduce the sauce by a quarter or until it has a good coating consistency on the back of a spoon.
For the veg, blanch for 1 minute in just boiled water, drain then quickly stir fry the veg in a little butter, adding the chilli for the last 15 seconds or so. Season and serve immediately when everything is hot but still has crunch.
Check the seasoning and serve the tarragon chicken on warmed plates with crushed cooked new potatoes with butter and chives and the stir fried chilli veg on the side.
BUTTERSCOTCH BRÛLÉE WITH COOK SCHOOL SHORTBREAD
SERVES 6
FOR THE BUTTERSCOTCH BRÛLÉE
200g tin sweetened condensed milk
6 free-range egg yolks
375 Graham’s double cream, plus extra to serve
FOR THE SHORTBREAD
125g Graham’s unsalted butter at room temp
60g icing sugar
dash vanilla essence
125g plain flour, sifted
60g cornflour, sifted
pinch salt
caster sugar, to dust
For the shortbread, mix the butter, icing sugar, vanilla and salt on low speed in the mixer until smooth. Increase the mixer speed to medium and cream the butter mix for 3-4 mins until it’s soft and very pale.
Take the mixer speed back to low and add the sifted flours, mixing only just enough to incorporate the flours. Don’t overwork the dough.
Finish by hand, bringing the dough together. Then roll out carefully on a floured surface, dusting with a little flour. The lighter your touch the better the shortbread. Roll the dough to about 1cm thick and cut with a round cutter dipped in flour before each cut.
Lay the biscuits on to a baking sheet and bake at 160C until light golden brown around the edges. As the biscuits are removed from the oven, dust with caster sugar and allow to cool before storing.
For the butterscotch brûlées, place the unopened can of condensed milk in a pan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for 3 hours, toping up the water every now and then so it always covers the tin. Leave to cool in the water. Alternatively, use preheated sweetened condensed milk, which Carnation now sells in cans, already made into the toffee sauce.
Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2. Open the can of ‘toffee’ and scrape it into a bowl. Stir in the egg yolks and gradually stir in the double cream until you have a smooth mixture. Strain it into a jug and pour evenly into six 7.5cm ramekins. Place the ramekins in a small roasting tin and pour in boiling water until it comes half way up the sides of the ramekins.
Slide the roasting tin carefully onto the middle shelf of the oven and cook for 20-25 mins until just set but still a little wobbly. Remove the ramekins from the tin, leave to cool and then cover and chill for at least 2 hours.
Finally, sieve icing sugar over the top of each, and blast with a blowtorch (or place under a preheated very hot grill) until caramelised. Leave for a minute or 2 for the brûlée topping to cool and harden, then serve with the shortbread biscuits.