Find the best local ingredients in Scotland

It's Burns Night tonight, so I hope ye have a warm-reekin’, rich haggis on your bill of fare, to celebrate the life and poetry of Scotland’s favourite son. I have taken a tip from that excellent lassie Sue Lawrence, the Scottish food writer, and will be serving mine with her recipe for clapshot, an Orkney dish of neeps (known as swedes in England) and potatoes, mashed with plenty of butter and chives.

If you are unsure of the correct running order and etiquette of a Burns supper, www.bbc.co.uk/scotland has plenty of helpful and amusing advice. Done properly it is an exhausting affair, with much poetry to be read, graces to be given, addresses spoken, toasts proposed, entertainments performed, responses given and whiskies drunk before the final unsteady rendering of Auld Lang Syne.

At the very least, you might like to nominate a musical member of the family to pipe in the mighty haggis on its silver platter. Nominate another to recite the famous Ode To A Haggis (1786). A knife must be poised at the ready, to be plunged into the casing on the words “His knife see rustic Labour dight”, making sure that some of the stuffing of oatmeal, onions, beef suet and sheep’s liver, heart and lungs, or “gushing entrails” if you prefer, spills out. Oh what a glorious sight.

Sue’s advice is to look for haggis in a natural casing (ie, one from Macsween of Edinburgh) instead of plastic. My advice is to buy the best malt whisky you can afford. You are going to need it.

Ingredients

Prep: 15 min
Cook: 1 hr, depending on size

Recipe from Sue Lawrence, Scots Cooking: The Best Traditional and Contemporary Scottish Recipes (Headline, £12.99)

1 large haggis
500g potatoes
500g swede (Scottish: turnip)
50g butter or dripping
Sea salt and pepper
2tbsp finely snipped chives

METHOD

Heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Wrap the haggis in foil and heat it in the oven for about 45 min per 450g/1lb, or until piping hot.

Peel and cut up the potatoes and swede. Place in a pan of cold salted water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15-20 min, depending on size, until tender, then drain. Return them to the pan, cover and shake the pan over a very low heat to dry them completely. Mash the vegetables with the butter or dripping, add salt and pepper to taste and stir in the chives.

To serve, slit the haggis down the middle and spoon the gushing entrails on to warmed plates with the clapshot and a wee dram or two.

For the best local produce in your area visit the Times Real Food Directory

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