Recipe: Reestit mutton and tattie soup

By Osla Jamwal-FraserNovember 30th 2022

This traditional reestit mutton and tattie soup from the team at Taste of Shetland is the perfect fuel to keep you going over the winter months.

Reestit mutton, and the tattie soup made on its stock, are integral parts of many festivities in Shetland and are widely considered to be our “national dish". Traditionally, “reesting” was a way of preserving fresh meat over the winter months. Today, it is prepared and eaten at a range of events, but especially at New Year and Up Helly Aa. In halls and homes the length and breadth of Shetland, huge cauldrons of soup are prepared along with trays of light, fluffy Shetland bannocks and saat flesh. This bounteous feast keeps body and soul together as first footers and guizers face a gruelling night of partying! Its saltiness makes it well suited to the abundant supplies of liquid refreshment to be found during these celebrations!

What exactly is reestit mutton?

Reestit mutton is essentially the salted meat of an eighteen-month old castrated hog lamb. The meat is brined then dried to cure, and is called mutton because it was originally made with older, less productive animals. In its original form it was used for the flavour and body it gives to an otherwise plain vegetable soup, rather than a substantial yield of meat. Today, cuts from younger animals with more and better quality meat are used. The end product is a real delicacy. Once properly cured it can be kept until it's needed. Similar to prosciutto and other cured meats, reestit mutton can keep for years if it's properly prepared and stored. Before eating it is boiled for several hours, on the bone, and then cooled and eaten with a hearty vegetable soup made with the stock.

Until salt became cheaper and more widely available across the isles, people would have made its more temperamental predecessor Vivda or Skerpikjøt, often considered a Nordic cousin to southern Europe’s prosciutto. The process for this is more of a gamble; mutton is hung to dry in the fresh, salty air in special drying houses where the meat ferments as it dries. Temperature is key in this process and it is much trickier to get right, but this method is still popular in Faroe and parts of Scandinavia.

How is reestit mutton made?

For reestit mutton, the animal is killed and butchered anytime from October onwards, and to make authentic 'reest' this should be a Protected Designation of Origin native Shetland animal. A strong brine is prepared which must be salty enough to float a potato. The meat is rubbed with salt and packed in the brine for two to three weeks. It’s then lifted from the brine and hung to dry and cure for at least another two to three weeks; some of the local butchers would say at least five weeks. The longer it is hung, the harder the cure.

Traditionally the ‘tees’ or legs would have been hung on the reest, the old Scots word used for the roof rafters or a special wooden frame in the rafters, over an open peat fire. The peat smoke gave extra depth and complexity to the flavour. Today, open peat fires such as these, are a thing of the past and the best home reesters can hope for is to hang it above the Rayburn, clear of the washing pulley! For commercial reestit mutton production, Shetland butchers use temperature-controlled curing cells. The process of reesting is one of those apparently simple procedures which is really an art and depends largely on the animal you’re starting from as well as a wealth of knowledge and expertise that goes into the brining and curing. For this reason, reest has been included in the growing list of Scottish products which belong to the Slow Food Movement’s Ark Of Taste for heritage foods. Although many people still produce their own, most locals now buy reestit mutton to simplify the soup-making process. Commercially, saat flesh is available from both Anderson’s Butchers and The Scalloway Meat Company, who will both ship.

Is the recipe below the definitive recipe for reestit mutton and tattie soup?

Like traditional delicacies the world over, there is no one, true reestit mutton and tattie soup recipe, but rather a myriad of slightly different regional and family variants. Dearly held preferences can trigger heated discussions, between kith and kin and amongst people from different areas in Shetland. Neep or no neep? Kale or no kale? Lumpy or smooth? To pre-soak or not? Meat in the soup or cold on the side? Here I give you the recipe as it is made in my family, where my father still prepares our own home-reared reest and my mother has her way of making the soup.

The recipe below will feed a small army of hungry revellers but, as you are likely to be using shop-bought reest, you will be able to purchase it in much smaller quantities than a traditional tee. If you are unlikely to need soup for twenty people imminently, just scale back quantities to suit your cut of mutton, although it freezes well if you are making a full batch. I would always boil the meat the day before to allow time for cooling the meat in its stock - this helps to keep the flesh as moist as possible. It’s important to remember that you are not only cooking the meat but rehydrating it, so there is really no need to worry about over-cooking.

For more recipes and to find out more about Shetland food and drink, visit the Taste of Shetland website.

Reestit mutton and tattie soup

Servings: Approx. 20

Ingredients:

2lb cut of Shetland reestit mutton
3-4 litres water
3 large onions
6-8 medium carrots
1/2 a medium neep (swede)
8-10 medium floury potatoes (or mealy tatties as they are known here)

Instructions:

Put your reestit mutton in a large deep pot and add enough water to cover it completely. Cover and bring to the boil over a medium heat and then reduce the heat and let it simmer for a good couple of hours, or until the meat is fork tender. Remove the pot from the heat and let the mutton cool in its stock.
When cooled, remove the meat from the stock. Remove and discard any bigger chunks of fat and some of the fat which has accumulated on top of the stock, if there is a lot. If you have cooked the meat for long enough it will come away from the bone easily and you can either cut it with a knife or break it into pieces with your hands - set this aside in a covered dish. Don’t refrigerate it, just cover and set aside.
Bring your stock back to the boil. The stock will be very salty, don’t worry about this, the vegetables will absorb some of the saltiness. If it really seems excessively salty at this stage, you can adjust to taste by adding a little extra water or plain lamb stock if you have it.
Meanwhile, peel and chop your onions reasonably finely. Peel all the other vegetables and chop roughly into bitesized chunks. Add all the vegetables to your stock and bring back to the boil. Simmer over a medium-low heat for about 30 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.
Remove from the heat and use a potato masher to partially mash the vegetables, the result should be thick and creamy but still have chunky vegetable pieces.
Serve your tattie soup piping hot with a batch of fluffy Shetland Bannocks fresh from the oven, cline (spread) them generously with Shetland Farm Dairies butter. You can either sprinkle a few chunks of reestit mutton into your soup or eat it atop your buttered bannocks - choose your camp!

Note: Both soup and cooked reestit mutton freeze well. Alternatively you can freeze the stock and make the soup in smaller batches as needed.

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