Category: 2.6 Lamb

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Haggis Neeps and Tatties

Traditional for Burns night, but good anytime…

There are two simple ways of doing this dish, as three things on a plate, or as a pie, in layers. Personal choice I tend to make the pie. But whatever you do the ratio is king – 1/3 of each, and every forkful carrying a little of each – it’s the combination that makes this dish.

You can make your own haggis (I have), however, it’s not so easy to get a ‘pluck’ (the offal including the lungs) and when you make a batch if you get it wrong then there’s a lot of it gone wrong. If you want to try making it there are good recipes online. I’d recommend using pin-meal oats, and make a small one to get the technique and flavour right, making sure you keep a good record of your ratios and cooking. Them make up the rest – you’ll need to do it all on one day because the pluck doesn’t keep well. You have been warned.

Easier to buy the haggis and grow the veg…

Ingredients

I buy MacSween Haggis, for me there is no substitute. You used to get it in sheep’s stomachs, but now it comes in a wrapper. So if you want to go all Burnsy and do the ode you’ll need to get a wrapper for effect.

Ingredients

Haggis 150g/person

Potatoes for mashing 200g/person – I use Charlotte.

Neep (Swede) 200g/person

Butter

Method

This is simplicity itself.

  1. Peel and chop the neep into cubes, put it onto boil for 20min in salted water.
  2. Peel and chop the potatoes, put them onto boil for 18min in salted water.
  3. When you’ve got about 5minutes to go break the haggis into chunks in a bowl, add about a tablespoon of hot water and start microwaving it – I do 3 batches of 2 minutes on increasing power (stirring between) for a 400g haggis. Add a bit more water if it needs it to fluff up and be moist but not wet.
  4. When the potatoes are cooked, drain, put on the hob for a few seconds to dry off, then add butter and mash.
  5. Do the same for the neep but no butter – you’ll find they give up a little water when they are mashed which does the job nicely. Use a sturdy masher for the neep as they are more resistant when cooked than potatoes.
  6. Option 1 serve immediately, or option 2, layer them in a pie dish, haggis on the bottom then neep, then potato and in a pre-heated oven at 225c (fan) for 12 min.

Simple, you can get haggis sauce, or make it – but really for me it’s best just the three on a plate.

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Shepherds / Cottage Pie

Okay so this is the basic ‘mash on top of a pie’ dish. Shepherds is when it’s lamb, cottage is when it’s beef. You’ll be unsurprised to know I make the cottage pie with Venison…

The key difference between the two is the gravy. For cottage pie you want a richer gravy, so I use venison stock and add red wine. For the shepherds pie I keep the gravy simpler, using a pheasant stock as the base, or just a bouillon base. You can substitute carrots for squash (especially a firmer squash like crown prince, but don’t be tempted by swede or turnip – they change the taste way too much.

Prep: 10min Cook; 40min (20 on the hob and 20 in the oven)

Ingredients – Shepherds pie

200g lamb mince

300g peeled potatoes roughly chopped

1 onion chopped

1 good sized carrot diced or 120g squash diced

250ml stock (pheasant or veg)

1 heaped dstspn bisto

1 dstspn Worcestershire sauce

salt, pepper, butter

Ingredients – Cottage pie

200g venisonmince

300g peeled potatoes roughly chopped

1 onion chopped

1 good sized carrot diced or 120g squash diced

200ml stock (venison or beef)

50ml red wine

1 heaped dstspn bisto

1 dstspn Worcestershire sauce

salt, pepper, butter

Before the mash

Perhaps the most important thing to get the pie right is the gravy. You don’t want too much or it cooks through the mash and makes it sloppy. But too little is just as bad – a dry pie is no fun at all. The picture shows a shepherds pie pre mash – I cooked it in the cast iron pan so I can get the gravy just right before adding the mash – no guessing – if I transfer it to a crock pot for the oven I can subtly change the balance and I don’t want that.

The filling is a firm layer, the gravy comes up to a few mm lower than the top of the layer – for me that’s perfect. And then…

Just out of the oven

You can see that even with that little gravy some has bubbled up and onto the mash and browned – that’s fine, because there is still plenty in the pie and the mash hasn’t gone watery at the edges – so now I tuck in.

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Rustic pasta

This is a firm favourite of mine, simple, lots of taste and warming for a winters night after a hard day outside. I use either meatballs made from venison or lamb, or if it’s a quick meal I’m after then I’ll chop up some sausages into 2cm pieces and use them as my meatballs.

The thing to remember here is a good quality balsamic vinegar, I use Belazu – it’s a real luxury but you only need a teaspoon for this dish, for basic balsamic you’d need at least a table spoon and it would take a lot more cooking down. If you’ve not got Balsamic then use a good glug of red wine – the richer the better, claret or rioja. Add this with the passata and cook it for an extra couple of minutes.

Ingredients

200g pasta (shells or twists ideally)

200g meatballs

1 onion finely chopped

1 finely chopped pepper

500ml passata

a generous teaspoon of balsamic vinegar

1 clove garlic

grated parmesan, salt, pepper

Method

  1. Cook the pasta in boiling salted water.
  2. While it’s cooking heat some olive oil with the balsamic vinegar in a frying pan, to drive off the acetic acid.
  3. Add the onion and pepper and soften them, then add the meatballs and seal and brown them. It will all take a glorious colour from the balsamic.
  4. add the garlic for 20sec to cook before adding the passata. Cook this for 5min to thicken the sauce and ensure the meatballs are cooked through.
  5. Season to taste, mix through the drained pasta and serve with parmesan and a good grind of black pepper.

If you want to use fresh pasta then I use linguini, it’s easy to make and works well with the sauce. I’d make 175g flour plus the egg to make a portion.

If you want to be chefy about it seal the meat balls first then put them aside, adding them back in a couple of minutes before the end – it keeps them very tender, but if your meatballs are good it makes less difference.