Monday the 25th saw a lot of bloggers celebrating the Burns Night with a traditional meal of haggis with tatties and neeps. Robert Burns is much loved in Russia, and I still can recite by heart Oh my luve's like a red, red rose (in Russian) and My heart's in the Highlands which I learnt at school for my English class. The Robert Burns reading societies through Russia celebrated his anniversary on Monday with feasts and
And despite the fact that I've lived in England for over 20 years, it is only about two years ago that I tried haggis for the very first time ( see my post Burns Night Dinner Minus the Pipers).
Last year I cooked haggis sausage rolls with the added sausagemeat and cranberries, and they were delicious. This year I fancied changing the recipe a bit and adding some mashed potatoes instead of the sausage meat.
I bought a traditional haggis from Macsween which is well known for its quality and authenticity.
Haggis sausage rolls (makes 16)
Ingredients:
250g haggis ( I used Macsween haggis)
140g potato, cooked and mashed
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1tbsp olive oil
1tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 packet of Jus-Rol puff pastry, ready to roll, 320g
1 egg yolk
sesame seeds
First peel and quarter a medium sized potato and cook in boiling salted water for about 10 minutes. Drain the water and mash the potato. Let it cool before adding to a mixing bowl with crumbled haggis. Mix well.
Finely chop half of the onion and fry for about 5 minutes with the olive oil. Add to the haggis mix with the fresh thyme.
Roll out the puff pastry. Slice lengthways in half. Divide the haggis & mash mix into two and shape into long sausages which you place in the middle of the pastry. Beat the egg yolk and brush the edges of the pastry. Overlap the edges so that you have two big sausage rolls, which you then slice into smaller pieces.
Dip each sausage roll into the egg yolk and then into a dish with sesame seeds.
Put the mini rolls on the oiled foil placed on the baking tray. Put the tray in the oven preheated to 180C. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is puffed, flaky and golden.
Eat hot. They are not bad cold the next day either. These sausage rolls were delicious, and adding a bit of mash makes the filling less solid.
What did you cook for Burns Night?
They look so good Galina. Yes, Russia took the spirit (in all senses) of Robert Burns to their heart with 'A Man's a man for a' that' There is no doubt that Rabbies socialist sentiments went down well with the Russian people.
ReplyDeleteThank you Janice! And it still rings true, this poem. I am a socialist at heart as well, and have no respect for the rich. I was just reading a Russian blog post, on how they cooked a haggis from scratch. It didn't look quite right, I think. :)
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