Neil Forbes recipe: oatcakes with smoked trout and crème fraîche
Prepare ahead and you will have delicious treats, like these Oatcakes with smoked trout and crème fraîche, for friends and family – and Santa, says Neil Forbes, chef patron of Cafe St Honoré
If you have never made your own oatcakes have a try, it’s so easy. I recently bought a girdle from a charity shop – one of the old ones our ancestors would have used to cook drop scones on – and the taste is completely different from baking in an oven. The smokiness from the flames of a real fire lick the edges of the girdle which flavours the oatcakes, giving them real character.
Ingredients
- 500g pinhead oats
- 100g porridge oats
- 40g plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 150g bacon fat, lard or butter, melted
- 30g sugar
- 15g salt
- a knob of lard and butter for greasing the girdle
- approximately 500ml water, or buttermilk, which makes for a really rich oatcake
- a few slices of smoked trout, I get mine from Belhaven
- enough crème fraîche for a dollop on each oatcake, I like Katy Rodger’s
- a few cornichons, or pickled cucumbers
- a few chives
Serves: 8-10 Difficulty: Medium Time to cook: 50 mins
Method
Make about 50 £2 coin sized oatcakes that will keep in an airtight tub for a week
1 Mix the oats, flour, bicarbonate of soda, bacon fat, sugar and salt together and trickle in the water, or buttermilk, a little at a time. If you are using a mixer or food processor, combine until you have a good dough.
2 Roll the dough into 4 sausage shapes, about the width of a £2 coin, then wrap in clingfilm and store in the fridge until firm. Then slice into ½ cm thick discs using a very sharp, serrated knife. Cook on a pre-heated girdle, or heavy-based frying pan, rubbed with a little lard or butter, for a couple of minutes on each side. Finish cooking them in a low oven 125C/Gas Mark ½ for about 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden and crisp.
3 To serve, top each oatcake with a few flakes of smoked trout, a slice of cornichon or pickled cucumber, a dollop of crème fraîche and snipped chives.