Jan 092012
 
The Legendary Wild Haggis

The Legendary Wild Haggis as pictured by StaraBlazkova

Haggis is one of my most favourite savoury meat dishes. It’s spiced and has a nutty smoothness. It’s a great way of using offal and an economical make-ahead dish. Traditionally it’s made with a sheep’s heart, lungs and liver (the ‘pluck’), mixed with oatmeal, suet, onions and spices and packed into the sheep’s stomach. It’s then boiled till cooked.

It’s mostly associated with the Scots now and Burn’s Night celebrations on the 25th January. According to Wiki its origins could come from Scandinavia through to Greece. As anyone who knows anything about butchering fresh killed meat, the offal will spoil quickly, so it seems logical to use what you have to hand to cook it asap after the kill.

Anyway, it’s something I’ve made a version of at home a few times and really enjoyed. I’ve used a few different people’s recipes and thought it was time I came up with my own version. I made this during the festive break and had it with a pearl barley risotto one day and then as a lasagne the next as you can see here. My version is cooked in a saucepan, not in a sheep’s stomach or in an ox bung (big sausage skin).

So here’s my haggis recipe, from Wales (via London).

Would you like to have a go? Read on… Continue reading »

 Posted by at 15:42
Dec 242011
 

Haggis Lasagna in construction

I made a huge pile of haggis yesterday that we had with pearl barley risotto.

To continue the Hibernian/Italian theme, I ‘ve paired it with home-made pasta today. The roasted tomato passata, dried tomatoes and preserved courgettes are all bounty from the summer: saved for a winter treat.

I’ll add the recipe for all this very soon.

Nadolig Llawen i pawb…

Update: 9th January 2012 – I published a recipe for how to make the haggis element of this dish. I’ll do this recipe to completion nex.

 Posted by at 17:12
Nov 262011
 

Amaretti, garlic, chilli

I’ll confess that I wasn’t planning to blog this recipe. However, the reaction of friends on twitter and the team here was so good that I had to share. And that’s why there isn’t a fab picture of the cooked dish: it got eaten before the camera could record it. Sorry.

I wanted to cook something special as a celebration meal for Debs’s birthday. She had chosen mutton and I had a nice piece of leg from the folks at Field & Flower. I wanted to do something quite different with it. We love Moroccan style food and I was thinking of chermoula spices, dates and almonds. However, I did not have enough almonds to hand,  so I wondered if some amaretti biscuits would fit the bill. They did. And how.

The taste is a glorious mix of warm sweetness and spice with a tangy almond edge. It’s rich and full and combines beautifully with the earthy sweetness of the mutton. The marinade would work equally well with a shoulder of lamb, slow cooked beef , chicken or game. In fact, I had lots spare and used it as a dip for the grilled tiger prawns we had to whet the appetite.

Do you want to know how to make this? Read on… Continue reading »

 Posted by at 15:07
Jan 052010
 

Pot roast lamb

The backstory

I planted some turnips in August closely spaced to give us some young turnip tops for salads. They were yummy with a bitter, mustardy taste – as you’d expect from a brassica. As they got older I used the tops as a green veg with olive oil and garlic and stirred through pasta sauces. Now the tops are a bit too bitter and so I’m successively thinning them out to use the gently swelling bulbs. Having fixed on the turnips (navets if you’re feeling Francais about it) I needed the rest of the meal…

Lamb and turnips are a perfect partnership. The sweetness of the lamb compliments the slighty bitter touch of the turnips. And lamb and rosemary are made in foodie heaven. Fortunately, I’d picked a half leg of Welsh Anglesey Lamb (nice and local) from the supermarket close to sell by date. A 12GBP hunk reduced to 3GBP – bargain. So I had the skeleton of the meal. I picked the ingredients outisde so what happened next? Read on…

 

Continue reading »

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