Burns night easy

Many people have already piped in a haggis for 2017, the Saturday nearest to Burns night having past. Maybe you want to do your eating and recitations on the 25th, observing the actual day. Why not try a haggis pie? It's colourful, and you can prepare it in advance. If Burns had had a 9-5 job, he might have tried this approach himself.

Take a look at the recipe here.

Pipe in your pie with the traditional poem: Address to a Haggis

Address to a Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye worthy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.
Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis

popularity of posts

Out of curiosity I just looked at which posts are most read on this blog. The answer? Haggis Cottage Pie, at number one, and Gunpowder Sauce at number two.

Haggis Cottage Pie is a wonderful recipe, easy to make, economic too, colourful and tasty. The pepperiness of the haggis gets two lovely things to contrast with it, mashed swede (with carrot) and potato. It can be made in advance, which is most convenient, and still piped in! The only down side, for an exceptionally greedy person like me, is that it is extremely filling, and I like to eat a lot, which makes me end up resembling a haggis around the midriff, and having to sleep it off. I'm also told it goes well with whisky.

Gunpowder Sauce, or as I have renamed it, Peace Sauce, is a preparation to add to stir fries, to make them taste super delicious and extra authentic (she says, with no oriental credentials except slightly hooded eyelids). It's not just me, all who have tasted the dishes made with it say so too. It keeps in the fridge for around a week, but doesn't freeze. Worth a try if you like a stir fry. As for those who stumble across it, while searching for methods to blow things up, please, just cook a meal, and give up your violent ways.

Thank you to everybody who visits this blog.

Haggis Cottage Pie

I like haggis, it is a marvellous thing, but I only eat it once a year. So as Burns Night loomed I was trying to remember how to cook it, and remembering how filling it is. My sister Clare suggested I try her haggis pie recipe. It has the advantage of being prepared in advance, it's easier to serve than a whole haggis, and layering the swede haggis and mash gives the right quantity of each. Serving it with some sweet, lightly cooked cabbage means you don't need any gravy. The colours on the plate are fantastic.


Keeping the swede and potato separate means it isn't clapshot, which is made mashing the two together.

I should say that by swede I mean neep, the Scottish turnip.

The flavour and texture of the haggis is wonderful together with the soft and sweet swede and the creamy mash. A little carrot adds colour to the paler swede. It looks great on the plate, slightly reminiscent of 70s browns and oranges, but better. So good, in fact, that my Scottish pal Doug pronounced it genius. If you like having the cooked haggis roll around the plate until you pierce it and allow the contents to spill, for the drama as much as anything, don't make this pie.

This much left me with three slices to put in the freezer - after four people with healthy appetites ate their fill. I'm going to have them for a hearty breakfast, unhealthily fried, with an egg on top, sometime, with a side dish of mushrooms.

RECIPE

Ingredients

2 haggis (I used Macsween's)

8 medium potatoes

1 large swede

2 carrots

salt

pepper

butter or margarine

milk

Method

• Take the printed plastic cover off the haggis and wrap them in foil, bake for 1 hour at 360/180/gas mark4 
• Peel the potatoes, cook well in salted water, drain and mash well with a hearty pinch of salt, good grindings of pepper, a knob of butter and a few glugs of milk. Don't make it too wet. 
• Peel the swede and carrots, cut into 2cm cubes and cook in plenty of salted water until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain, saving some of the liquid, about a cup. Mash thoroughly with some butter, a little salt and pepper, and add a little of the cooking liquid at a time.
• Lightly butter a heatproof dish, about 25cm/10" in diameter - I used an oval dish. 
• Slash open the cooked haggis and scoop out the filling into the buttered dish. Spread out a layer, about 2cm/1" thick. 
• Spread a layer of swede and carrot mash over the haggis layer, about 2cm/1" thick.
• Top with a similar layer of mash, and smoothing the top, then run a fork around it, to give lots of ridges to go crispy.

• Cook for 30 minutes at 360/180/gas mark4, until the crust is golden.

Serve with lightly cooked buttered cabbage.