My haggis, leek and potato pasties

I've been riding a high speed emotional roller coaster for two months now. 
I feel like a pregnant lady who has no idea when her due date is going to be.
I keep on signing very important documents that I only vaguely understand.
I think "Christ, things would be so much easier in France" at least once a day. 
I've started spending time on furniture and design websites, when I've always hated everything remotely related to interior design. I even have an opinion about such things now!
I have become an expert in random topics like American fridges, heating systems, burglar alarms, Japanese knotweed,...
I'm buying a house in the UK, get me out of here!

My Haggis Pasties

(Haggis is not just for Burns Night!)

As you probably already know, I absolutely love haggis. I kept on wishing I could eat haggis all year long rather than just on Burns Night, when I realised that I could! And nothing prevents me either from enjoying haggis with something else than neeps and tatties.

When the lovely people at Macsween offered me samples of wild boar haggis and veggie haggis, I was thrilled and didn't miss a beat before experimenting with them.
The results are superb! I'm still to test more recipes, but apparently one can use haggis like mince meat, so I guess the possibilities are endless. Yummy!


Ingredients: 

For the flaky pastry 
450g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
½ tsp salt
200g unsalted butter
Aprox 200ml ice-cold water
1 tsp turmeric powder

For the filling
2 leeks, finely chopped
100g potato, peeled, chopped in small cubes
1 onion, finely chopped
1 small haggis (I used Macsween wild boar haggis), uncooked
3tbsp plain flour
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Make the pastry:  
1/ Put the butter and water in the freezer for 15 min beforehand.

2/ In a big bowl, sift the flour, turmeric and salt. Grate the almost frozen butter into the flour. Wash your hands with very cold water so that they are as cold as possible. With your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until it ressembles fine crumbs. Try not to work it too much so the butter doesn't melt or become soft

3/ Add gradually the cold water and knead the dough very briefly until it forms a rough ball. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30 min (this is important to respect this time as it will enable the gluten to developp and prevent the pastry from shrinking when cooking of being greasy)

Make the filling:
1/ Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4

2/ Cut the potato, leek, onion finely. On one side, mix the vegetables together and season with salt and pepper. In another bowl, open the haggis and rub it into the flour, season only with pepper. Gather everything in the same bowl and mix well.

3/ Roll the chilled pastry out onto a clean, floured work surface to a thickness of approx 5mm. Cut a large disc from the pastry using a small plate as a template. 

4/ Place the vegetables and haggis mixture in a line down the middle of the pastry disc.

5/ Brush the edge of the pastry disc with some of the beaten egg. Draw the edges of the pastry together and crimp them with your fingers to seal (it's important that the pastry is well sealed all around as this will allow the vegetables to steam in the pastry case). Brush all over with the remaining beaten egg.

6/ Start over with the pastry and filling left over until all used up.

7/ Place the pasties onto a baking tray and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until golden-brown. Eat warm or cold, with a salad. 

 

Recipe adapted from a Hairy Bikers's Cornish Pasty recipe.
I was offered free samples of Macsween haggis but wasn't asked or paid to review them. I do it because I like their products!

Eccles Cakes : little currant wonders

Monomania, definition in the dictionary: 

1. Pathological obsession with one idea or subject.

2. Intense concentration on or exaggerated enthusiasm for a single subject or idea.

I'm this kind of blogger who can spend days thinking about her next recipe, trying to choose between the dozens of recipes that lie on my Top Priority To Bake List. 

When I'm on stage doing improvisation and I don't know what to do, I often end up playing someone who cooks. 

When I invite friends over for dinner, it takes me all week to devise my menu, make a decision, change everything, go back to my initial ideas...

When I'm with Him, we spend hours discussing what amazing food we'll be cooking this week-end (when two food lovers meet...) 

If you add all of this up...I reckon I spend half of my time thinking about food. Is there something wrong with me Doc?

Traditional Eccles Cakes 

These little currants delights belong to the great traditional British regional biscuits heritage, and are a great way to practive and improve my pastry skills (which so far are quite poor, considering that I often take shortcut and buy ready-made pastry)

Well, I'm afraid Eccles Cakes might have changed this forever. This homemade flaky pastry is so delicious that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to buy supermarket pastry ever again!

This flaky pastry is also perfect for Cornish pasties.

Ingredients for the flaky pastry 

175g plain flour

115g unsalted butter 

approx 2tbsp ice cold water

a pinch of salt

Ingredients for the filling 
75g unsalted butter
150g soft brown sugar
150g currants

1 tbsp mixed spices (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg)

50g mixed citrus peel, finely chopped

Make the pastry:  
1/ Put the butter and water in the freezer for 15 min beforehand.

2/ Wash your hands with very cold water so that they are as cold as possible. In a big bow, sift the flour and salt. Grate the almost frozen butter into the flour. With your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until it ressembles fine crumbs. Try not to work it too much so the butter doesn't melt or become soft

3/ Add gradually the cold water and knead the dough very briefly until it forms a rough ball. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30 min (this is important to respect this time as it will enable the gluten to developp and prevent the pastry from shrinking when cooking of being greasy)

Watch Master Baker Anthony Kindred's  pastry video masterclass to see how to make flaky pastry. 

Make the filling:  
If possible, prepare the filling the night before (it doesn't compromise the biscuits if you don't): mix all the ingredients in a bowl, squashing the currants in your hands to let the spices, sugar and butter to impregnate them. Cover and let aside so the flavours will develop.

Make the cakes:  

1/ Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface to a thickness of about 3mm. Using a 6cm cookie cutter, cut the pastry into rounds.

2/ Place a teaspoon of the filling in the middle of each round. Bring the edges of the pastry up into the middle and pinch to seal.

3/ Turn the sealed pastry parcel over, so that the seam is underneath, then gently press down until it is about ½cm thick and you can see the currents through the pastry (without them breaking it). Gently pat back into a round shape if needed and place onto the greased baking tray or a silicone mat.

4/ Slash each cake across three times using the tip of a sharp knife. Brush the cakes with milk and sprinkle with a lot of caster sugar (I dipped them into a bowl of caster sugar to cover them all around)

5/ Bake for 15 minutes, or until the pastry is golden-brown and puffed up. Transfer the cakes to a wire rack to cool.