Haggis sausage rolls

Haggis sausage rolls - there is no way to make these bad boys look sexy

Ok, ok I’m sure I know what you are thinking ‘euch sausage rolls’. Am I right? The reason why I know this is because before I tried these bad boys I initially thought the same. Please don’t be offended S. and M.. I guess I had just too many bad memories of the frozen and reheated mashed up pigs snout wrapped in soggy, stodgy ‘pastry’ type sausage rolls. These ones my dear reader are from an entirely different branch of the family tree. For example, if the ready made frozen ones are the Govan Ned these are the Highland laird; a much classier affair.

It really gets my goat when a blogger drones on about how great the dish is and how you really, really need to try it to believe it et cetra, et cetra so all I’m going to say is this; if you like haggis you will probably enjoy it and everyone that I’ve made these for has asked for the recipe. Always a good sign.

Haggis sausage rolls

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius

1 medium sized onion finely chopped

few sage leaves torn

1 tbs of oil

400g minced pork (shoulder works well)

400g decent ready prepared haggis

a good pinch of salt

a few grinds of black pepper

2 eggs

750g of ready made all butter puff pastry

Soften the onion in the oil in a frying pan over a moderate heat until translucent.

Add in the torn sage leaves and cook through for another minute.

Add the onion and sage to a large bowl along with the pork mince and haggis and one of the eggs and salt and pepper. Mix well.

Roll out the pastry until it is about 1/2cm thick.

Divide the mixture into 3 and make into long sausage shapes along the length of the pastry.

Roll the pastry over the sausage mixture and press down the edges with a fork.

Beat the remaining egg and brush this over the pastry.

Cut the rolls into 3-4cm lengths and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until cooked through and the pastry is golden brown and flaky.

Enjoy.

Salted pistachio chocolate cookies

Salted pistachio and chocolate cookies

I guess I’ve got bloggers’s block and it’s getting to be a real pain. When I’m not out and about with friends or pottering away in my kitchen I want to be spending my time on the right side of my brain; taking photos, trying new flavour combinations, starting to write... For those that follow thetwicebitten regularly you might have noticed that the number of posts have dropped from an enthusiastic 7 per month when I first started to a dismal 1 per month of late. At first I brushed it off as “just a bit busy at the moment” and tried to avoid acknowledging my difficulty. Quiet Sunday afternoons that I had pencilled in to write came and went with no fruits of my labour at the end of them. It just felt so forced and contrived. Anne Lammont in “Bird by Bird” beautifully captures hating what you write and it’s a book I’ve been coming back to time and time again. I’m going to plod on thanks to all the support from my lovely friends and I'm going to try to remember that the real prize is in the progress. In the meantime I’m going to  keep filling my tummy with yummy things and fill my mind with the food writing greats. Here goes nothing.

Salted pistachio and chocolate cookies

Salted pistachio chocolate cookies – adapted from the hummingbird bakery cookbook

Makes12 cookies

You will need 2 baking trays lined with greaseproof paper

Preheat oven to 170 degrees

50g unsalted butter

300g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

2 eggs

170g light muscovado sugar

¼ tsp vanilla extract

85g plain flour

½ tsp sea salt

½ tsp baking powder

70g shelled pistachios - chopped

few pinches of sea salt

Melt the butter and 225g of the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.

Remove from the heat once smooth.

Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract with an electric whisk until well mixed.

Pour in the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and stir in with a wooden spoon.

Sift in the flour, ½ tsp of salt and the baking powder in 3 additions into the chocolate eggy mixture and stir until mixed.

Stir in the remaining 75g of chocolate.

Arrange the mixture with 6 equal sized dollops of cookie mixture per baking tray.

Be sure to leave enough space between them as they will spread during cooking.

Sprinkle the pistachios and the sea salt to taste onto the top of the cookies.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, checking after 10 minutes.

They are ready when glossy and cracked on top, they will still be soft and gooey.

Leave to cook a little before turning out to cool completely on a wire rack.

Enjoy

Salted pistachio and chocolate cookies