We were lucky to have a Scottish lass with us on our trip (well it's because of her that we embarked on the journey to begin with!) the lovely Joanna, who braved the early morning crisp after a rather large Friday night out to collect the ingredients for our morning feast. Being in the hungover state we were our ingredients were purchased via a supermarket as cooking from scratch was definitely not an option!
Stomachs were churning in excitement and some in apprehensiveness at what was yet to come.... black pudding, square sausage, haggis, pork sausages, bacon, eggs, toast, a tattie scone and some American / Kiwi influence of good ole tomato sauce!
(Click the diagram to get a better view)
Black pudding: Comes in a mini dog sausage like roll and needed to be cut into 1cm slices, then grilled or fried. For those who are squeamish stop reading now: the ingredients in Black Pudding actually consists of cooking blood, or dried blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. Despite this unappealing main ingredient Black Pudding is actually rather tasty! But it is definitely an acquired taste... it is one of those many foods that you either like or don't like. But it is definitely worth a try! And as Joanna points out - Great for those who are anemic!!!
Square Sausage or Lorne Sausage (what is traditionally known as): Now this one item in the Scottish Breakfast I hadn't actually heard of before but it is just that. Pretty much sausage meat, patted down into a square. Voila! Square sausage!
Haggis: A grainy, stuffing type texture that is browny/grey in colour, and which crumbles when cooked. Warning - another squeamish moment ahead: Haggis is traditionally made from sheep's heart, livers and mixed with onion, herbs, spices and stock and then traditionally cooked in a sheep's intestine, although the version we had was pre-cut in circular slices and not cooked in a sheep's intestine (phew!).
Tattie Scone: A type of potato pancake that is beaten and flattened and either toasted, grilled or fried. The potato texture is kind of lost in this Scottish speciality but it is a good alternative and probably more healthy to the hash brown.
At first glance, the Scottish Breakfast appears to be one meat feast! Much to the boys delight.
When complied together the Scottish Breakfast comes across quite heavy, and rather dry, especially when one is used to the traditional English Cooked Breakfast (bar the baked beans for us Kiwi's!). I would say this is mainly due to the amount of meat in the Scottish version. I found the flavours of each ingredient, complimented each other nicely in the Scottish breaky especially the crumbled haggis, combined with egg and bacon provided a nice nutty flavour and texture. The black pudding also provided a strong flavour in itself so I would recommend eating with tomato sauce or combining with the other ingredients. Unless you are an avid fan and I am told this is eaten often by itself! I surprisingly was intrigued to try black pudding and put my pre-requistions behind me and blocked the ingredients from my mind and found I actually rather enjoyed it.
The Scottish Breakfast is definitely nice for a change to its English counterpart. The combination of different meats and flavours provides a heartier version and the different textures of the haggis and tattie scone was a welcomed change. If I was going to create this masterpiece again in my own kitchen I would probably forget the toast and replace with the tattie scone, and maybe add a grilled tomato to lighten the flavours and provide some juice to the grilled meats, to soften the dryness, although good ole tomato sauce does do the trick nicely.
The Scottish Breakfast is definitely a feast and a meal to reconcile with but one I don't think I could handle every weekend!
Thanks to Jo for sharing her countries traditional goodness with us, and I look forward to our future feasts!!
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