If you're hosting a festive feast this year and want to offer your family and friends something special, then the Orkney larder should be your first port of call.
You might already have your Christmas dinner centerpiece planned, but what about the snacks and nibbles before the main meal? From just a few Orkney products, you can create an amazing array of canapés that will wow your guests.
We asked our Orkney food blogger, Rosemary Moon, to come up with some simple suggestions to help you get your celebrations underway in style.
Whipped feta is a 'thing'.
We don’t make feta in Orkney but we do have plenty of fresh cheeses, like Russell’s, Grimbister and Burnside. The last two are excellent feta substitutes: go for one of the flavoured Burnsides to make a super-easy dip, meze or ‘topping/glue’ for canapés. There’s smoked, chilli flakes or, my favourite for a whipped cheese, pepper and chive.
Just grate or crumble the cheese, which you can do in a food processor, then add Orkney cream and milk until the mixture is soft enough to scoop as a dip or use as a base instead of cream cheese for canapés. A pack of Burnside, a 250ml pot of cream and the same again of Orkney milk produces a perfect consistency. And you can add garlic as well. Will I ever use anything else?
And whilst our Orkney cheeses are not as salty as feta, we now have Orkney Sea Salt, produced on the island of Lamb Holm between the first and second Churchill Barriers. The island hosts the world-famous Italian Chapel, as well as the J. Gow Rum distillery, which won gold and bronze in the Original Scottish Rum of the Year category at the 2024 Scottish Rum Awards. Just grind the super-big crystals of salt a little and sprinkle them over the cheese - but not too much as canapé toppings might be slightly salty if they are smoked.
I like to use the whipped Orkney cheese as both a dip and to anchor the wonderful Orkney produce that we have to biscuits or bread for party nibbles. We have two sourdough bakeries, Orkney Sourdough and the Eviedale Bakehouse. Their breads are stocked at William Shearers, The Brig Larder and The Bayleaf Delicatessen.
Being firmer than the more traditional breads from our well-established bakers like Argos, Rendalls, and the Westray Bakehouse, they slice and cut into squares well. Top them with a little of the whipped cheese and then smoked salmon for a very traditional drinks snack, but with a twist.
Smoked salmon in Orkney comes from either Jollys of Orkney, who now also use The Orkney Smokehouse as a name for on-line sales, or from Pierowall Fish in Westray. The Westray salmon is available on-line from Judith Glue. A grind of black pepper, a squeeze of lemon (neither of which we produce here, for now) and the most stylish and easy of snacks is ready to serve.
Smoked salmon, however, is not the only star of the Orkney canapé platter.
There’s ham and cooked, sliced roast beef and other meats that our butchers, Fletts in Stromness, and Williamsons and Donaldsons in Kirkwall produce. I particularly like Donaldson’s Hickory Smoked Ham and their Smoked Beef. Both make wonderful toppings for nibbles as well as being fine ingredients for stylish starters at any time of year.
The great thing about Orkney is that a lot of our artisan produce really takes the hard work out of preparing the snacks that are so much a part of Christmas entertaining. A few packets of mini biscuits and oatcakes in the cupboard means you are all set to go whenever you are entertaining. Stockans and Baikies produce cocktail-sized oatcakes that just need toppings, and Argos have a range of biscuits including beremeal biscuits and cheese biscuits which are square and easy to top, arrange on a platter and eat!
We’ve long had a thriving crab business here in Orkney and whilst I love the flavour of the red meat, the white is definitely the easiest and most attractive for festive nibbles.
Traditionally served simply with lemon juice and black pepper on biscuits or thick slices of cucumber, or mixed with a little mayonnaise, our crab is also super-tasty mixed with a little of the Chilli Jam from Orkney Island Preserves, made in Shapinsay. And 59 Degrees North, the camp site and pizzeria in Sanday, also make their own chilli jam which they have for sale.
In addition to crab, Jollys offer smoked mussels which make wonderful snacks too. Especially if you have tiny dishes for serving, you can marinade them with finely diced cucumber and red pepper in the chilli jam, thinned or let down with vinegar and/or fish sauce. Or simply serve the mussels with salt and pepper in their own juices, like a tub of cockles.
Years ago, I wrote a cookbook for Marmite and I was determined to include a fish recipe in it. It became my favourite smoked mackerel paté ever: a tub of cream cheese beaten with fresh ginger juice, chopped chilli and a teaspoon of the Love It or Hate It spread, then chopped parsley was added with flaked smoked mackerel - and there is no finer smoked mackerel than that from Orkney, again from either Jollys or Pierowall Fish. Such meaty, firm flakes and the pâté is great on the mini oatcakes.
In common with our neighbours on Latitude 59 North in Scandinavia and North America, we are very good here in Orkney at growing potatoes and pickling herrings. And I love a herring potato salad, with finely sliced red onion, chopped capers or cornichons and parsley. A teaspoonful on a slice of raw Orkney carrot is super simple and different. Anyone who is a good baker might like to make some little choux buns with our beremeal flour from Barony Mill. Once baked and cooled, the split buns can be filled with the whipped cheese, the mackerel pâté, some smoked salmon or even a little of the potato salad.
Many of our bakers and tea shops offer selections of dainties that take the work out of sweet things at a party – certainly the Birsay Bay Tearoom has been busy with its baking this year.
And what would Christmas be without a Fatty Cutty, the famous Westray biscuit? Somewhere between a Garibaldi and a shortbread, JP Orkney have them in the local shops and available on-line, while QA Shellfish often have packs in from Westray.
But the most festive of the treats - although available all year round - are Odin’s Kitchen French Macarons. Brightly coloured and exotic with flavours including passion fruit, mango, coconut, pistachio and honeycomb, macarons are so The Thing and we have them, being made in St Mary’s and enjoyed right here in Orkney.
Get your orders in soon!