This week the recipe is haggis, neeps and tatties soup. I never knew there was such a thing until I went into a roadside cafe near Berwick a couple of weeks ago. I went online and honestly, the recipes I saw were nothing like the wonderful soup I’d had. So here’s my recipe, worked on this week. I made a large batch, I want to freeze some but will be doing that without adding the haggis. It’s very filling and a great winter soup.
Haggis, Neeps and Tattie Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons veg oil
- 1 large onion
- 360g carrots (approx)
- small swede
- 900g tatties (floury ones are best)
- 100g pearl barley
- 3 beef or lamb stock cubes
- 2 litres water
- Haggis
Method
- Peel and chop the onion. Top and tail the carrots and wash them, chop. Peel the swede and cut in half. Chop one half chunky and the other the same size as the carrots. Peel potatoes. Chop two of them into small pieces (to help thicken the soup) and the rest into chunks similar to the larger chunks of swede. Cut up the stock cubes.
- Rinse your pearl barley as instructed on the packet. (Don’t worry about cooking separately as suggested on the packet, this is simply because pearl barley will thicken a dish and that’s what we want here.) Use a sieve or colander.
- Put oil into a large pan (10litre pan), heat and gently fry the onions. Once soft, add water, stock cubes, pearl barley and the larger chunks of veg. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 30 mins. Add the smaller veg, continue to simmer for 45 minutes.
- Roughly mash the veg, concentrating on the larger chunks. It doesn’t matter if you mash some small veg too.
This is a large batch of thick, warming soup. Stir and ladle into freezer proof dishes, portioned to suit your needs. Allow the portions to cool before placing lids on and putting them in the freezer. If you are having soup on the day of making, leave enough for your needs in the pan. Reheat if necessary, roughly chop (err on the large side) around half the haggis and add to the soup. Heat thoroughly in the soup. If preferred you can heat the haggis separately and add to the soup when plated.
Try with black pudding instead of haggis. If you don’t want to make a large batch either halve the ingredients or eyeball what you need. It’s soup, there’s no exact science, put your own twist on it.
Recipe by M Campbell
Photo by M Campbell