Yet Another Cycling Forum

Off Topic => The Pub => Food & Drink => Topic started by: Jaded on 25 January, 2013, 07:00:30 pm

Title: Haggis
Post by: Jaded on 25 January, 2013, 07:00:30 pm
That is all.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: delthebike on 25 January, 2013, 07:05:06 pm
That is all.
That is offal.
Forgot to buy some this year
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: marcusjb on 25 January, 2013, 07:07:43 pm
Nom nom nom

(Not having any tonight as I am home alone, plan t have some at the weekend).

We usually have it a few times a year as we're both big fans.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: eck on 25 January, 2013, 07:09:09 pm
Here in snowbound Kirriemuir, we are just about to have haggis, veggie flavour, with chips 'n' beans. And HP sauce. of course. The One True Way.  :)
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Lightkeeper on 25 January, 2013, 07:21:19 pm
I used to live round the corner from Macsweens, purveyors of fine haggis fae Edinburgh.  If you left early in the morning, there were great steaming baskets of them cooling on the pavement.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I prefer the vege version.  With clapshot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapshot): another of the One True Ways.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 January, 2013, 08:19:45 pm
Big in Jamaica. So I've heard.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Wowbagger on 25 January, 2013, 08:31:04 pm
We shared half a haggis this evening, with neeps, tatties & carrots.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Oaky on 25 January, 2013, 08:50:17 pm
Forgot to buy some this year

On the plus side it should be marked down from tomorrow  :thumbsup:

Does Haggis freeze well?
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Lightkeeper on 25 January, 2013, 09:55:21 pm
Does Haggis freeze well?

Yes.  See point five on this list (http://www.macsween.co.uk/what-is-haggis/traditional-haggis-facts-myths/), from the before-mentioned Macsweens.

Edit:  despite what Macsweens say, the bit about "plump wee beasties running around the tops of Scottish hills" is definitely true.  I know, 'cos my grandfather telt me.  Also, the way to catch a haggis is to sneak up behind it and cough, causing it to turn round.  Its shorter and longer legs will then be the wrong way round on the hill and it will fall over, uneven legs waving in the air, allowing you to snare it.  Not a word of a lie.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: mr magnolia on 25 January, 2013, 10:51:35 pm
No haggis for girls at brownies tonight - shortbread and Irn Bru. Must be a health thing...
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: padbeat on 25 January, 2013, 11:08:15 pm
Haggis last night with my boys for dinner and the leftovers (it was huuuge!) into a pasta sauce on Sunday.
Haggis tonight at our Burns Supper (and a fish pie for the unbelievers) with real ale (Lomond Brewery's Meg's Tail) brewed not 5 miles away. Nom nom nom ...

We really should have it more often.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Jaded on 25 January, 2013, 11:37:11 pm
I used to live round the corner from Macsweens too, but they have moved.

Our Haggis is done, we are replete.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Feanor on 25 January, 2013, 11:52:52 pm
Nae haggis for me tonight: the Cairn O'Mount has been off limits to me for a month.

On a related note, I did manage to slightly convince a group of furrin visitors that there were ferral hippos on the moorland on the CoM.

Driving them in a Transit mini-bus from Montrose to the Deeside Activity Centre near Aboyne for a 'team-building' jolly, I took the CoM route.   One of their number spotted a creature down in the moor, some distance off.   It was just a deer.  But I said it might have been a hippo; there was a small pod of ferral hippos living wild here.   Back in the 1920s there was a former army type who had bought up Fasque Estates who own this land, and he's enjoyed hunting in Africa back in the day.   He'd brought african wildlife here to hunt and the likes, but also just to have around.   There had been a great storm one night, and the wildlife had broken loose of the fences.   The big cats were found and captured or shot, but the hippos had managed to avoid capture, and remained wild to this day.

So it remains unclear whether there is actually a pod of ferral hippos living in the moorland between the CoM and the Bridge of Dye.

Mind how you go, especially in the dark.
They make a sound like someone laughing: "Ho Ho Ho"....
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: padbeat on 25 January, 2013, 11:57:35 pm
You are a very bad man and you are going to hell.

Probably.

 ;D
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Jaded on 25 January, 2013, 11:59:18 pm
Way better than a Loch Ness monster story.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: RJ on 27 January, 2013, 09:17:10 pm
Haggis last night with my boys for dinner and the leftovers (it was huuuge!) into a pasta sauce on Sunday.
Haggis tonight at our Burns Supper (and a fish pie for the unbelievers) with real ale (Lomond Brewery's Meg's Tail) brewed not 5 miles away. Nom nom nom ...

We really should have it more often.
25th of every month?  ;)

(Haggis pasta - class ;D)
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Lightkeeper on 27 January, 2013, 09:24:44 pm
25th of every month?  ;)

Including December?  A whole new haggis market.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: jsabine on 29 January, 2013, 01:18:38 am
Strong recommendation for M&S haggis by the way - made for them by MacSweens, but I fancy it's a slightly different recipe to the last MacSweens one we had, and a little more to our taste. (That is, MacSweens is good, this is double plus good. Unless it's all psychological and a result of it being an M&S haggis. Should try a blind tasting, not colour my opinions with trying to remember flavours over a period of months.)
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Wowbagger on 29 January, 2013, 01:19:56 am
We finished the haggis today. McSween. Very good indeed.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Tigerrr on 29 January, 2013, 09:18:10 am
I am a big Haggis fan but something went wrong with this one.  McSween's finest but we've all been ill since Sunday when we ate it. Even the dog who ate the scraps.  I am hoping I might lose weight as a result but otherwise its a bit nasty.
I dont want to eat haggis again for a long time now.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: numbnuts on 29 January, 2013, 09:22:28 am
I am a big Haggis fan but something went wrong with this one.
Maybe it was off-al
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 01 February, 2013, 07:49:44 pm
Juat had ours. nom.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Jaded on 25 January, 2021, 08:54:42 pm
Just had McSweens Haggis, bashed tatties and a poor substitute for neeps. Swede.

Fantastic!
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: FifeingEejit on 25 January, 2021, 11:36:12 pm
I had a mushroom stir fry, I forgot to take the chicken out the freezer.
It did not get addressed, just eaten.

#DissapointedInMyself
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Davef on 26 January, 2021, 08:39:01 am
Just had McSweens Haggis, bashed tatties and a poor substitute for neeps. Swede.

Fantastic!
Perhaps it varies - my dad is from rural aberdeenshire and where he comes from neeps are precisely swede.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ElyDave on 26 January, 2021, 10:40:51 am
I recently found out that swede is a contraction of Swedish Turnip, so neeps = swede makes sense.
Title: Haggis
Post by: Davef on 26 January, 2021, 10:45:47 am
I recently found out that swede is a contraction of Swedish Turnip, so neeps = swede makes sense.
My dad also refers to swede as turnip which also confuses matters.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Jaded on 26 January, 2021, 10:50:15 am
Swede is yellower than turnip.

What about bageys?
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 January, 2021, 11:11:10 am
Swede is yellower than turnip.

What about bageys?
Bogeys are yellow too but I've never heard them called turnips.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: jiberjaber on 26 January, 2021, 11:12:48 am
I recently found out that swede is a contraction of Swedish Turnip, so neeps = swede makes sense.
My dad also refers to swede as turnip which also confuses matters.

Sweeds were always turnips until I moved down South then I discovered the smaller white ones.  We also used to hollow out and use them as lanterns for Halloween.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Davef on 26 January, 2021, 11:13:12 am
Swede is yellower than turnip.

What about bageys?
In Scotland (or some part of Aberdeenshire at least) what you call a swede is called a turnip. What you call a turnip is called a white turnip.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Davef on 26 January, 2021, 11:34:23 am
I recently found out that swede is a contraction of Swedish Turnip, so neeps = swede makes sense.
My dad also refers to swede as turnip which also confuses matters.

Sweeds were always turnips until I moved down South then I discovered the smaller white ones.  We also used to hollow out and use them as lanterns for Halloween.
I had forgotten the Halloween thing.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ian on 26 January, 2021, 11:52:49 am
I was disappointed in the US to find that the excitingly named rutabaga turned out to be a swede.

Turnips are a variety of Brassica rapa (as is pok choi and of course, rape – which Americans can't say, so have to call it something else– fact fans), swedes are a variety of B. napus, a cross of B. rapa and B. oleracea – basically a cabbage did it with the turnip and they had a big baby.

Kohlrabi is a german turnip, that's pure cabbage.

Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, sprouts kale, etc. are all the same species (B. oleracea).
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Rod Marton on 26 January, 2021, 12:42:48 pm
Swede is yellower than turnip.

What about bageys?
In Scotland (or some part of Aberdeenshire at least) what you call a swede is called a turnip. What you call a turnip is called a white turnip.

As I discovered when I moved to Scotland. Though being from Suffolk, I'm quite happy to eat swede.

Oddly enough my wife, who is from Foreign Parts, had never come across the vegetable before. As she rather liked the taste, she asked her mother whether anyone ate it in her home country. "Yes", came the reply. "Prisoners of war."
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 26 January, 2021, 12:52:33 pm
Nope, not here. Neep = swede.
Often to be found lying in fields for sheep feed.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ElyDave on 26 January, 2021, 01:25:55 pm
Swede is yellower than turnip.

What about bageys?
In Scotland (or some part of Aberdeenshire at least) what you call a swede is called a turnip. What you call a turnip is called a white turnip.

As I discovered when I moved to Scotland. Though being from Suffolk, I'm quite happy to eat swede.

Oddly enough my wife, who is from Foreign Parts, had never come across the vegetable before. As she rather liked the taste, she asked her mother whether anyone ate it in her home country. "Yes", came the reply. "Prisoners of war."

As mrs P notes, I've heard the same re cattle feed.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Jaded on 26 January, 2021, 01:28:02 pm
Bageys are often found in fields of sheep too. In Northumberland.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: citoyen on 26 January, 2021, 01:30:59 pm
I've always understood 'neeps' to refer to what I as a sassenach call swede.

We used to observe Burns Night for my Scottish mother-in-law's benefit but haven't done so for a few years, since she died. But we have haggis every now and again as the mood takes us - as I mentioned elsewhere recently, it's too good to be eaten only once a year. Always a treat.

Macsween's is good but the best haggis I ever had was from Cockburn's in Dingwall, when we were visiting my wife's relatives up there.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ian on 26 January, 2021, 01:42:55 pm
Neeps should be swedes, turnips taste different and won't mash up right.

I'm a bit meh on haggis, it's all right, but I wouldn't eat it often (which seems to be the general view).
Title: Haggis
Post by: Davef on 26 January, 2021, 01:58:14 pm
English <-> Scottish
Swede. <-> Turnip,neep
Turnip. <->   White turnip,neep

You can convert one turnip variety into the other by boiling with sweaty socks.

Haggis is traditionally served in batter with chips.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Ben T on 26 January, 2021, 03:03:14 pm
Haggis invented by English and hijacked by the scotch, says historian https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/5960237/Haggis-was-invented-by-the-English-not-the-Scottish-says-historian.html
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ian on 26 January, 2021, 03:06:57 pm
A [Scottish] friend of mine blamed the English for haggis, on the grounds that the only reason to eat it is to demonstrate sufficient national pride.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 26 January, 2021, 05:19:01 pm
A whole haggis is too much, really. It's one of those things I like for the first couple of mouthfuls and then it all gets a bit much.
Can eat plenty neeps though, as long as they're covered in black pepper.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ian on 26 January, 2021, 05:26:03 pm
Yes, I remember the first time I had haggis, I thought it was actually quite nice, but after a modest portion, I wasn't particularly enticed by a second helping. The general view was to get it over with for the year on Burn's night and be done for the year.

That said, I had flatmates who had it on pizza fairly regularly. But they were from Stirling, which made them very special.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Hot Flatus on 26 January, 2021, 05:35:25 pm
Careful.

My children are 1/4 Stirling, and if you don't watch what you say I'll send them round to yours for the old surprise visit


(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2f/55/68/2f5568d6be25a47a51a52abcb397d47e.gif)
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: TheLurker on 26 January, 2021, 05:37:44 pm
A whole haggis is too much, really.
McSweens* sell ones that are a little larger than a chip shop black pudding and they make a very pleasant meal for one. It says 2-3 on the label, but that's a lie.


*Back inna dawn of time when I was a PSO the shop was but a hop, skip and stagger* from the hovel I called home and I was immensely pleased to see them when they appeared (as if by magic) in our local supermarket a few years ago.



*After closing time. :)
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ian on 26 January, 2021, 05:43:01 pm
Careful.

My children are 1/4 Stirling, and if you don't watch what you say I'll send them round to yours for the old surprise visit


(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2f/55/68/2f5568d6be25a47a51a52abcb397d47e.gif)

Yeah, that's Stirling. The younger brother went to work in the US, not realising that you needed to be 21 to drink. Not drinking was inconceivable to him, it's the only antidote to being from Stirling.

Anyway, when I went to visit him, his room was full – literally – of booze. Crates, bottles, you name it. He'd turned himself into the Al Capone of illicit hooch for the local university campus. I'm you do know this is probably very illegal to which his response was och, it's only beer. For some reason, he was never caught, though I suspect he could have drunk the evidence if pressed.

Also, not one person in the US could understand a word he said.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Regulator on 26 January, 2021, 05:45:00 pm
I love haggis, faggots*, black pudding, white pudding and other offal related products.  About the only things I don't like is tripe and andouillette (the French really don't know how to cook offal).







*Both types.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Hot Flatus on 26 January, 2021, 05:57:41 pm
Careful.

My children are 1/4 Stirling, and if you don't watch what you say I'll send them round to yours for the old surprise visit


(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2f/55/68/2f5568d6be25a47a51a52abcb397d47e.gif)

Yeah, that's Stirling. The younger brother went to work in the US, not realising that you needed to be 21 to drink. Not drinking was inconceivable to him, it's the only antidote to being from Stirling.

Anyway, when I went to visit him, his room was full – literally – of booze. Crates, bottles, you name it. He'd turned himself into the Al Capone of illicit hooch for the local university campus. I'm you do know this is probably very illegal to which his response was och, it's only beer. For some reason, he was never caught, though I suspect he could have drunk the evidence if pressed.

Also, not one person in the US could understand a word he said.

The first time I went up there and met my would-be kids great-grandmother (her son, would-be grandfather died that year...alcoholic, like his dad) I knocked on her door and and seconds before it opened would-be Mrs Flatus said " Shit! I forgot to warn you she's got three fingers missing on her hand!"

Door opened, white haired octogenarian looked at me and proferred a stump with only a thumb and a vestigial little finger to shake. I shook it, but I'm pretty sure she heard my internal scream. She'd lost the fingers in a loom, working in a mill when she was 12.  Didn't seem to affect her badly though and she went on to gas her 8 year old son's pet rabbit as a punishment.

Yeah...Stirling.

Right, better go and give the kids my car keys and your address.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Jaded on 26 January, 2021, 06:44:43 pm
A whole haggis is too much, really.
McSweens* sell ones that are a little larger than a chip shop black pudding and they make a very pleasant meal for one. It says 2-3 on the label, but that's a lie.


*Back inna dawn of time when I was a PSO the shop was but a hop, skip and stagger* from the hovel I called home and I was immensely pleased to see them when they appeared (as if by magic) in our local supermarket a few years ago.



*After closing time. :)

McSweens, Bruntsfield...?
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: andrewc on 26 January, 2021, 07:02:08 pm
I'll eat haggis if I'm offered it or given one,  it's OK , but not a particular favourite.   


M&S black pudding slices are by McSweens & are very nice.    But I got this at the weekend (also M&S) & had some last night, luvverly stuff...


(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Esb5fjDW4AEa15B?format=jpg&name=large)



Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: TheLurker on 26 January, 2021, 07:19:46 pm
Quote from: Jaded
<snip>
McSweens, Bruntsfield...?
The very same.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Jaded on 26 January, 2021, 07:36:16 pm
Quote from: Jaded
<snip>
McSweens, Bruntsfield...?
The very same.

Now an Oddbinns or similar. Was my local butchers too... about 150m
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: CarlF on 26 January, 2021, 08:05:24 pm
It's been "McSween's of an industrial unit in Loanhead" for a long time now.

Anyway:
Haggis Pakora.

It's great.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ian on 26 January, 2021, 08:26:55 pm
I used to love the wonderfully named Brain's Faggots as a child, in their little metal tray, wobbling in their fragrant gravy. Having just googled to confirm they're a thing, it's Mr Brain to you. I never knew there was a cheery butcher behind the random pork parts concoction that I have also assumed were produced in some giant porcine hadron collider. And it's not gravy, it's West Country sauce. I can't say I've had one since I was a child. I think I'm working up a craving. I'm not big fan of offal, words I'm comfortable saying, no one gets a t-shirt that reads '#1 OFFAL FAN.' I do like steak and kidney pie though. I had horrific experiences of liver as a child, my mother would cook it to indestructibility. It wasn't cooking so much as tanning. I remember once managing to sever a portion with my incisors, but a vessel remained, which snapped right back into my eye. I actually bled from my eyeball because of liver.

I'm greatly enjoying Parts Unknown on Netflix at the moment, every episode I swear he gets served tripe, which means we have a competition to be first to shout TRIPE! when the bowl arrives. (In last nights episode, he made a Frenchman eat spicy food – many years ago we took our French flatmate out for a vindaloo, oh my, I've never seen a human being turn that shade of red before.)

I have tried tripe once, but it was a posh tripe and bits, I forget the chap, one of the famous chef places in Soho. I figured he'd been cooking it since he was five to tenderise it. Even my grandparents wouldn't eat tripe. Anyway, it wasn't worth the effort.

I also used to love tongue sandwiches, made by my gran, I blame rationing, so do they I imagine. It was actually quite late in my development that I realise that tongue was literally tongue, sliced for my delectation. I was a slow developer, you should have seen the look on my face when I realised that the Durex on display at the local barbers wasn't a haircare product*.

*seriously, we were dared to go and buy a packet of 'johnnies' from the machine in a pub toilet, don't ask me why, we were about thirteen and in no position to use them, girls being a theoretical concept and magazines or the lingerie section of Freemans really not demanding you came prepared, and there on the prophylactic dispenser the familiar word – Durex).
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Canardly on 26 January, 2021, 08:34:07 pm
Most popular dish in Venice (for the locals) is liver and onions allegedly.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ian on 26 January, 2021, 08:48:08 pm
Least popular dish of my childhood, not helped by the fact that my mother just overcooks everything and when she's done overcooking something she overcooks it some more. She thinks the correct time to fry a thin piece of sirloin is 35 minutes. No joke, I timed her once, it should have taken three, four minutes tops for medium.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ElyDave on 26 January, 2021, 09:02:38 pm
I'm not allowed black pudding, or haggis in the house (apart from whe she's not here) so i tend to sniff it out in hotels when I'm there.

I'm reliably informed that Mr MacDonald himself takes an interest, and it's pretty good black pudding.
The Aberdeen Mercure on Union Terrace is passable haggis

Worst haggis I've ever had was on the sleeper from Aberdeen to London, the half bottle of burgundy helped though

I'm with Ian on faggots though, used to be a post-match staple when I played rugby in Somerset, supplied by the butcher who played second row
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Hot Flatus on 26 January, 2021, 09:03:51 pm
Good old Hilary Briss
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: FifeingEejit on 26 January, 2021, 09:23:20 pm
English <-> Scottish
Swede. <-> Turnip,neep
Turnip. <->   White turnip,neep

You can convert one turnip variety into the other by boiling with sweaty socks.

Haggis is traditionally served in batter with chips.


I'm not sure if I've ever eaten a white turnip.
It has possibly appeared on my plate somewhere with me taking a puzzled look of wondering "WTF is that thing a bit like neeps but the wrong colour"

Careful.

My children are 1/4 Stirling, and if you don't watch what you say I'll send them round to yours for the old surprise visit


A town that at face value looks nice, but then you discover Raploch and Cornton aren't in Weegieland
Seriously, one of my mates lives in Denny and it's nicer (now that the infamous carbuncle has been demolished).

Worst haggis I've ever had was on the sleeper from Aberdeen to London, the half bottle of burgundy helped though

Microwave reheated haggis  :sick:
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Davef on 26 January, 2021, 09:40:34 pm
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210126/133854377375336ebf26dab14468b187.jpg)
Always important to keep an emergency haggis in the saddlebag.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: andrewc on 26 January, 2021, 09:45:25 pm
Least popular dish of my childhood, not helped by the fact that my mother just overcooks everything and when she's done overcooking something she overcooks it some more. She thinks the correct time to fry a thin piece of sirloin is 35 minutes. No joke, I timed her once, it should have taken three, four minutes tops for medium.


Our mothers must have read the same cookery books.  No juice or trace of pinkness allowed.  All meat shall be burnt on the outside & bone dry in the middle.  Veggies should be soft.


Liver was school,  vile.  I used to like the kidneys you'd get on a good pork chop though, and the little plastic bags of them in gravy were a treat.


We used to get blocks of frozen tripe as dog food,  a special freezer to store it & a separate microwave to defrost it,  the smell   :sick: :sick:


Now liver & onions just cooked until it's pink, with a honey & vinegar sauce,  that's lush. 
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Jaded on 26 January, 2021, 10:27:55 pm
Aaahh! Crumbly liver - those memories  :sick:
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Regulator on 27 January, 2021, 09:36:26 am
Most popular dish in Venice (for the locals) is liver and onions allegedly.


Unlike the French, the Italians (and the Spanish) know how to cook offal.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ian on 27 January, 2021, 10:23:02 am
Sadly no tripe in last nights Parts Unknown, but he got to feed the Obama chap (back in his president days) random porky parts and spicy noodles – he wasn't scared of the chillis – I'd have been scared to tackle noodles in a shirt that white though. I guess the Secret Service have spares.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: citoyen on 27 January, 2021, 11:16:55 am
Re French offal cookery, I do like a nice salade de gésiers. Never got on with andouilette though.

When I was growing up, my dad would occasionally have Brain's faggots for a treat - though for some reason my mum never inflicted them on me and my siblings, which is a shame because when I eventually got the opportunity to try them for myself I found that I really liked them. This was a pleasant surprise because I had been labouring under the misapprehension that they were actual brains, rather than just a kind of large meatball.

And like ian, I was also surprised to discover that tongue is made of actual tongue. That's another one of those cuts that requires careful cooking to avoid being turned into leather. The best tongue I've ever had (stop it!) was at the French House.

Unlike ian, I'm lucky that my mum knew how to cook liver. However, I discovered that not everyone has that skill when I was in hospital aged 10. The other kids in my ward were all going for the burger and chips option and the nurse asked me if I was really sure I wanted the liver. I was adamant that yes, I really did want liver! I regretted it.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: ian on 27 January, 2021, 11:32:53 am
I confess that I've never eaten liver in anything other than pate form since I left home. I still remember the gruesome chewing challenge it presented. Getting it down was a marathon of mastication. And I had the sort of upbringing that entailed eating what you got, if you didn't, you went without or it came back as the next meal. None of that modern 'if you eat that you can have dessert.' Claiming liver-intolerance would have fallen on deaf ears.

Tongue only hot me when I saw a big tongue lolling in the butcher's window and then he picked up and started to slice. I thought it was like haslet (which admittedly is probably made from the butcher's porcine floor sweepings). (I've always wondered about oxen, you get the tongue and tail, what happens to the middle?)

Overcooking was the bane of my mother's attempt at cooking. Everything was overcooked so it was either chewy beyond belief or mush. My father always takes the overcooked food and puts it back in the oven for another 30 minutes to 'make sure it's warm.'
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: andrewc on 27 January, 2021, 11:54:48 am
I've had andouliette in France a couple of times, doubt I'd bother again.    The last time I ate at http://www.uniontavernlondon.uk in Clerkenwell they had something with sweetbreads on the specials board, and they were rather nice.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Regulator on 27 January, 2021, 01:54:23 pm
I'll eat haggis if I'm offered it or given one,  it's OK , but not a particular favourite.   


M&S black pudding slices are by McSweens & are very nice.    But I got this at the weekend (also M&S) & had some last night, luvverly stuff...


(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Esb5fjDW4AEa15B?format=jpg&name=large)


I've had that before as well... very nice!   :thumbsup:

However, the best black pudding I've had in the UK was from a butcher in Bury*.   But the best black pudding ever to date was a morcilla we had in a little cafe in Guernica.  I also rather enjoyed a morcilla Gallega (even though I'm not a huge fan a sweet savoury dishes).






*As an aside a friend of ours, who went to med school with Jon, is one of the authors of the somewhat notorius Bury black pudding/occult fecal blood study published in the BMJ (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC139030/)
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: Davef on 27 January, 2021, 02:00:26 pm
Re French offal cookery, I do like a nice salade de gésiers.
Bag of salad, pack of gésiers, frying pan, bottle of wine.

I think I will have to stock up with frozen when the borders open.
Title: Re: Haggis
Post by: bairn again on 27 January, 2021, 02:09:11 pm
Picked up a McSweens haggis in a flying masked visit to Tesco to pick up something else (parsley and bay leaves - neither of which my regular shoppe Aldi stocks if you must know)

To be consumed in the coming days with mash.