New stories about the crazy people who shop and work in supermarkets.

 

Just when you think there are no more stories of crazy customers or even crazier shop workers, as illustrated in my book Supermarket Creatures, along, from the depths of my memories, trot a few more to amuse or shock you. These are quite random but here goes:

I remember the type of person working behind the counters who had very little regard for the fact that Supermarkets were there to make a profit so they would come up with the getaway clause "Well that's what the customer asked for and the customer is ALWAYS right." These types would trim the fat off the  the edge of the sirloin steaks and not charge the customer, likewise with cutting out the fat from the ribeye steaks because the customer asked them too. Again they didn't charge the customer for the fat.

Rib eye steaks

I even saw and most definitely heard one of the women on our meat counter hacking a length of oxtail to death with a cleaver because the customer wanted smaller bits of oxtail. The bone is solid except in the joints and almost impossible to chop through. The customer' would also say that the 'other butcher' did it for them the last time and would stand there tut tutting impatiently, with their arms folded in across their chest whilst the shop worker went red in the face and weak in the arms and wrists hacking away at the oxtail.

One day I came back from a break to find the small metal tray on the fish counter, that had previously contained loose scallops, mostly with the orange roe attached, just full of orange roe bits. The person who was on the fish counter whilst I went for my break had sold a dozen or so scallops to a customer who had asked for the roe to taken off because they only wanted the white scallops and her dog didn't like the orange bits.

Scallops with roe

Amongst many twatish requests from customers I recall a man who asked if the raw prawns were de-veined. They were all done prior to being frozen and packaged and distributed to the supermarkets. So, I told him they were definitely de-veined. He didn't believe me and went on and on about it and what a lazy liar I was for at least ten minutes but it seemed like forever. 

We had a very nice pre-made fish pie mix on the fish counters which included some white fish, some salmon and some smoked. The fish types were fairly distributed in the mix but you would always get some idiot who didn't like the look of the smoked fish and wanted you to cut up some from the smoked section and replace it. Then they chose not to buy it or purchased some and then dumped it. By the way, taking fish from other parts of the fish counter wasn't right because it was all costed out per individual fish type. Again, there would always be some errant member of staff who would bend the rules for a customer because they didn't want any bother from them. Of course once one person does this it then sets a precedent for the customer to return wanted the same special treatment week after week. The same applies to those awkward to serve customers who wanted you to chop the pointy ends of the fish fillets simply because they didn't look neat, or as one 'knowledgeable' customer said "The pointy ends don't taste the same as the rest of the fillet.

The same customers would ask why the haddock loins looked a darker colour than the fluffy white cod loins or why there was a red or black mark on them. The latter dumb question was in relation to the blood line where the fish skeleton would have been. Many of them though you as the proud fishmonger was trying to flog them something that was infected or going off. This was especially so if they'd watched a scary food programme on the television the night before.

I have mentioned this in the book but the one aspect I really didn't like was when Tesco had a half price special offer on Whole Salmon. This is what our fridge looked when rammed with whole salmon boxes and other fresh fish items. Well, actually it be much worse than this. You could seriously call it rammed to the gills. The cream coloured plastic trays weren't the best for holding any fish when the edges of the trays started to break and it was a disaster waiting to happen if you tried to fill up any of these trays with whole salmon overnight.

When we had swordfish loins on offer or on display a young man would buy as much as we had which often equated to another £50's worth. I must admit we had a our suspicions that he might be trying to steal the expensive swordfish so a few times we had him followed by security. But every time he paid for it! I wonder to this day what he did with all that swordfish. He was nice enough to serve unlike the man I often had the displeasure of serving who would make you go through all the tiny sprats and sort out the bigger (fresher) ones for him. Then he'd want them gutting and filleting.

There was another idiot customer who I have described in the book as Wally Wildebeest. This huge obnoxious man often came over to our fish counter. Not to buy anything but to plunge him beefy right hand into the ice and hold it there for a few minutes. "Look at that!" he'd proudly say "Look at that! I have the perfect circulation. I don't even feel the cold. That's because I go swimming everyday!" 

One of the young students who appeared in academic holiday times was completely rubbish at any of the display and preparation jobs across the deli, meat and fish counters. He falsely claimed he'd passed all of the Tesco food qualifications to the top level. Yet, he'd make a right hash of things, especially on the meat and fish, the whole salmon being the worst example. I would feel embarrassed that such mangled products were sold on our counters. If any member of staff said anything, he'd look affronted and  argue "Well that's how we were taught to do it in Coventry." The rest of the time he would rapid mumble and rabbit on about his brilliant sword fencing skills and highly educated numeracy skills. I used to dread him coming on to our counters.

I hope to bring you many more stories like these and if you wish to delight yourself with even more Tesco blunders and wonders from across UK then do order my book Supermarket Creatures. Available on Amazon as Kindle and Paperback.

Phil Lowe.

Latest news. So long Tesco and thanks for all the fish.

Gosh, Christmas 2017! Is it really that long since I published anything on my food blog? Well yes, it must be and since then much has changed. I am still as passionate about food, if not more so, it is just that my theatre reviewing and promoting website has taken over 200% in terms of the spare time I can/could dedicate to blogging in general. Whilst I was working at Tesco on the meat and fish counters my time was limited but then a chance to move on came with my counters' redundancy in May 2019. Disillusioned with the shallow customer base of supermarket trading (two salmon fillets please ad bloody infinitum) I have centred my time and talents for humour on writing a book called The Total Joy of Travelling On Public Transport and developing my East Midlands Theatre Wordpress website. One thing for sure is that I will never have to spend valuable time and energy preparing half price whole blinking salmon for greedy Tesco customers at Christmas and Easter ever again! Thank the Lord!

I promise that I will do my best to continue to keep all my loyal food blog readers up to date with the foodie events in my life ongoing. It may not be day to day cooking blogs but I hope whatever I write will continue to amuse and enlighten. Thanks very much for your support. Phil Lowe.

Happy New Year 2017 to all my readers.

I am delighted to wish all my lovely readers a very Happy New Year for 2017. Thank you very much for reading and sharing my blog posts on Mug Of Strong Tea. This morning my stats recorded that I am now getting 13k hits a month on this blog! Wow! Thank you too to those readers who have used the Amazon link at the top of the site for their various purchases.

For those readers who aren't aware I have also been writing a comedy blog for a few months and because the content isn't always about food the comical blog posts I write don't always fit onto this foodie blog. Lots of them do link in though and this one, recently posted, is about the Groundhog Day nature of my travels to work each day. Obviously the story is exaggerated for comic effect. Click on this LINK for my funny blogpost 'Is Your Day Getting More and More Like Groundhog Day?

If you like my 60plussittdowncomedy blog style do please follow and share.

Phil x

Fish set up on Friday.

These photos were taken when the display was mostly done (a few tickets missing) and it wasn't being ravaged by eager customers.

The process is filling the display space with fresh ice and packing it down so it doesn't melt and the smoked region is covered in finoplas (like cling film) to prevent cross contamination. The trays for raw and cooked have to be kept separate buried to their rims in ice and various rules have to be followed in the displaying of the raw fish and prevention of ice burn on the salmon, tuna and swordfish. The whole fish have to have a light covering of ice and the live mussels and oysters are ice cooled from within the pots. All the fish and shellfish products are date checked daily to assure ultimate freshness and quality. Each product arrives with a caught date and a sell by date on the box or plastic tub. We make a strict daily record of  the dates and fish in a product book. It is a good reference point not only for the fishmongers but sometimes to assure customers who are always asking if the fish is fresh. There are many other checks and health and safety rules to follow throughout the working day.

As the serving day comes to a close we make sure all the reductions are done and that the fish counter is stripped of the days ice and scrubbed down and the remaining fish stored away in the fish fridge.

Phil Lowe

Singing on the fish counter? Am I losing my mind?

Being rather a fan of musical theatre and also reviewer of amateur and professional musical theatre shows I do find myself quietly (that is the operative word – quietly) singing snippets of show songs in my day job on the fish counter at Tesco. It keeps me entertained if no-one else. Well, lovely readers, it's not just musical theatre because, this last week the songs of David Bowie have been in my head and partly sung to myself as I move around the store. This includes taking rubbish to various cages at the back of the Tesco store, going upstairs for my breaks and to places I otherwise inhabit around the Tesco Extra store at Beeston. I appear to become particularly vocally excited at going home time and the songs go from maudlin to jaunty. Not sure why that might be. My co-workers all seem remarkably tolerant of my sung mumblings expect one miserable young man who scowls at me as I pass by him in my jolly musical mode. I fear that anyone over thirty is beyond contempt in his world view. Do I give a shit? Naaaaah!

I even get ideas for a piece of musical theatre set in a supermarket from time to time. Note to self. Must work on this.

A lot of my ahem 'singing' is from shows such as Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, Les Misérables, Follies,  Company, Mack & Mabel, Cabaret, Cats, Mary Poppins, West Side Story, Barnum, Godspell, Guys and Dolls, The Rocky Horror Show, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Evita, Linie 1, Sunday in The Park With George, Martin Guerre, Miss Saigon, Spamalot and my first musical theatre love – Jesus Christ Superstar. I try not to think about Mamma Mia otherwise I get a wretched ear worm for weeks and can't stop those Abba classics going round and round in my head. Interestingly I have no particular desire to see the show.

The songs from Sondheim's Into The Woods can be in my head for weeks – curse them and their catchiness! I am going to review two separate productions of Bugsy Malone soon and fear that the jaunty song 'Fat Sam's Grand Slam' will be haunting me very soon. Too late!

“Anybody who is anybody

Will soon walk through that door

At Fat Sam's Grand Slam Speakeasy!!!!”

Maybe I should go all camp and sing 'My name is Tallulah' instead. Could be fun.

As I type I wonder if there is a musical about dead fish? From a Google search, it appears not but there is a Brazilian hard core band that formed some years ago in Vitória Espirito Santo in 1991. They were originally called Dead Fresh Fish but shortened their name just to Dead Fish. I wonder if they were classically trained and had to learn the scales!? Ha! From a few viewings on Youtube they seem to be pretty rocking guys! I might learn a couple of their songs and freak out our pensioner customers with my ear piercing air guitar skills with a whole salmon as my pretend guitar!

Or maybe I am just singing along unaccompanied and generally  'Losing My Mind' hahahaha!

If you like my sense of humour do check out my recently created comedy blog and follow for the latest updates.

Preparing dozens of whole salmon for the Easter rush.

When we are given an amazing half price whole salmon (only £4 a kilo) offer to deal with on the Tesco counters we can expect it to be a busy time ahead. This will mean de-scaling the whopping 3.5 - 4 kilo whole fish (a whole new workout for the arms, wrists, shoulders and legs) and cutting and neatly preparing them to the customer's specifications; examples - two de-boned and trimmed salmon sides; two salmon sides cut into smaller portions and pin boned; steaking down; cubing the lot for endless fish curries (please don't let them dump it).

We also get some outlandish requests like "Make it like a kipper - make it like that which we have at home in Kipperstan sur Mer  on very special occasions and, as you do it, we will stand and politely scrutinise your every move. It must be exactly so. Each bone. The entire family and generations past are watching you now. No stress. As we say in Kipperstan sur Mer 'God almighty makes the fish perfect. The fishmonger less so.'  #Fishmongervoyeurism is trending apparently.

Sometimes we have to listen very carefully to the preparation request as English isn't always the customer's first language. A simple request to "Leave the head" can be very confusing. Do they want the actual salmon head or not? Should I leave the head in a bag with and spinal bones for fish stock to be given to the customer? Leave the fish head on the body of the fish peut etre? Maybe you want me to leave it on the side to go into our fridge as waste?"

Maybe the request has a density of such poetic complexity we can only expect to humanly scrape the surface of it. "Please Oh Mr/Miss Respected Fish Person. I ask, nay deeply implore you to: Leave the head only if it has bright virginal eyes identical to the sacred Madonna, skin as shiny and crystalline as an October morning sea at Dubrovnik and with ruddy gills like the freshly painted window blinds I saw that sublime day I visited a side canal in Venice and knew not its name but felt forever blessed by its colourful, intoxicating, Italianate Rococo existence."

With us getting an influx of customers from varying cultural backgrounds we have to politely ask that the salmon on display is not prodded, poked, tickled, flipped over, licked as a fetish, or the ruby red gills minutely examined or discussed by excitable generations of Cantonese or Mediterranean folk crowding the counter front with their mobile phones and translator apps documenting everything fishy.

More importantly the name 'salmon' is not pronounced 'sallamon' nor is a fillet a 'fill-ay' comme en Francais but 'fill - it' like 'I have a hole so I must fill it.' Little things matter to us fishmongers. 

Prétention is not our métier

Sometimes we get asked to take all the scales off the whole salmon and then to take the skin off. There is no point in removing all the 'flicker about everywhere' scales on the fish skin when the customer's end game is not to have the skin left on their portions or salmon side. Occasionally, we have passionately done the entire job and bagged the whole salmon up in portions and the customer suddenly decides they want the skin taking off their twenty portions!!! This would mean weighing the whole thing again with the waste (that wot they refused) which is now hidden amongst dozens of bags of fish waste in the green tray at bottom of the fish fridge. Patience can be a virtue.

This is when the patience, the  skills and passion of my internet friend Emma come into play. I have never met Emma McKeating face to face but she is one of the most passionate fishmongers in the UK that Tesco have on their counters. Her recent 'Girly fishmonger' web blog post is certainly worth a read.

Emma McKeating.

Plus, right next door on the meat counter at Tesco Beeston (which I help run) there are half price whole leg of English lamb offers, and half price British beef roasting joints and half price British beef rib roast as the main offers. Busy busy busy!

My colleagues Paul and Alan, Nicola and Debbie (as well as additional help from the deli staff Andrea, Alistair, Adele and Sharon) have all worked very hard this Easter to make sure that the customers have gone away happy with their meat and fish products and I wish them all (and you dear readers) a very happy Easter!

Funnier than the average fishmonger: Phil Lowe.

Up to my ears in Salmon! Plus news of potential new horizons.

Today marks two days before I break up for the Christmas holidays at Tesco ( I have Christmas Day and Boxing day off) and my male work colleagues Paul, Alan and I have been hard at it selling lots of whole salmon, a few carp, various other fish and plenty of half price meat offers. The day has gone by quickly and due to our fun and banter together the whole experience has been rather fun. Plus - making the customers happy through our helpfulness, finely honed knife skills, combined knowledge and professionalism adds to an overall very satisfactory experience.

Paul, Phil and Alan,

This is the fifth year working on the Tesco counters for myself and 2016 may well bring in some major work changes for me as I direct my working life towards writing for and promoting things theatrical in the East Midlands rather than working for a large supermarket corporation. My time at Tesco has mainly been enjoyable but has also been disappointing sometimes in fulfilling my original (perhaps naïve) foodie expectations of working alongside a group of like-minded individuals. Perhaps I am exceptional and didn't ever realise it until later down the line.

Although I have always endeavoured to promote myself as a knowledgeable professional on the meat and fish counters my focus of interest has, of late, increasingly veered towards the theatrical arts and my constant reviewing and theatre writing activities outside of work. Setting up www.eastmidlandstheatre.com in mid October 2015 has furthered my desire to change and follow an entirely different route workwise. Saying that I will always continue to use this blog as a forum to promote my lifelong love of food.

Fresh Scottish Salmon

Kissing Carp

I know that recently I have neglected this blog somewhat in terms of regular content but it is only because I have felt this urgent need to promote my new website and that takes time and lot of effort extra to the 36.5 hrs I work at Tesco plus ten hours a week travelling time. It has been like doing two jobs and at times exhausting. However, every minute spent working and writing for EMT and also for Sardines magazine and reviewing for the Nottingham Post newspaper has been worth it. My two days off each week have been dedicated to pushing myself to add interesting content to the theatre website.

As a friend recently said "You must be constantly at it!" This is true but I believe that no-one else is going to do this writing work for me and to be honest although the actual job of reviewing a play, after returning home from the experience, takes me into the past midnight early hours - sometimes after being on the go at Tesco since 7.30am - I feel tremendous pleasure from doing a good professional writing job to support the production and the theatre involved.

Another time related quote may well be appropriate as I ease myself into full-time dedication to developing EMT and that is the old adage about retirement. "Eee since I retired I don't know how I ever had time for work!" Well, this ambition ain't exactly retirement - quite the opposite - but I hope that the actuality of the proposed new working environment, to be, is equally as fulfilling!

Outdoor reared pork ribs marinated in a yummy Korean sauce.

Even though I sell a lot of outdoor reared pork ribs in my daily job at Tesco I don't recall ever cooking any. Well they are cheap and so I decided to buy myself a decent amount and looked out for a marinade sauce that wasn't majorly hot. Amongst the array of sauces and marinades I found this little beauty from Encona Taste Explorers. Given the generous amount of ribs I had provided for myself I went for two jars. See their great Twitter link @EnconaOfficial and Econa Facebook page

I chopped the ribs into smaller bite-size bits and poured the jars of marinade over the lot. I rubbed in the marinade and thoroughly coated the meat. Then the ribs in the bowl were covered in cling film and left in the fridge to marinade for almost two days.

ribs before marinade

In cooking the smoky/spicy flavoured ribs I pre-heated my oven to gas mark six for ten minutes, transferred the ribs to a casserole dish and covered it in silver foil. They cooked at this heat for half an hour and then I turned the heat down to four. I left the ribs cooking on this relatively low heat for a further three hours, occasionally taking them out and turning their delicious porkiness over in the marinade. For the last half hour I added a few slabs of dark chocolate to the cooking pork for a hit of extra sweet flavour.

I could hardly wait to eat them when they finally came out of the oven and the marinade had thickened like a reduction. I kept it simple and ate them with some quickly prepared Uncle Ben's rice.

I realised that perhaps I had cooked a few too many ribs for one person and thought that maybe I could chew on the remaining amount cold the next day. I was wrong. They are much better eaten piping hot!

Early morning walks and Moules façon Philippe. Mussels just like Phil makes.

For a while now I have been getting up ludicrously early of a Saturday and Sunday morning (both of which I work) and walking for half an hour to the nearest tram stop to where I live in order to get to work a bit earlier. On a Saturday morning this means getting up at 5am and leaving the house at 5.40am and on Sunday morning leaving the house at 7.30am. I don't need to be at work until 9.30 but I do love my coffee and steaming fresh almond croissant stop en route.

Last Sunday it was a tad foggy on the main road out of Ruddington and just by the bridge nearest the first tram stop (Ruddington Lane) I saw a large grey dead rat laying un-squished in the road. It looked as if it had just fallen asleep. Along the way I witnessed many a glistening translucent spider's web in the bushes and the trees. Alas I had no time to photograph them.

As it happened it was a morning of frustrations as the tram was only going as far at Wilford Village due to the Robin Hood Marathon taking place in and around the city centre. When I reached the tram stop I had no prior knowledge of this. I wasn't exactly late for work but the delays cut into my 'nice coffee before starting my Sunday shift' moments.

Fields near Ruddington on a foggy Sunday morning.

Foggy Road

A tram replacement bus took me to the outskirts of Nottingham city centre (London Road by the canal) and then I had to walk to the bus station - wait for a bus to take me Beeston hence which (said bus) went a rather circuitous route to Beeston. As I had had a rather fraught night out the evening before I arrived at work in a rather tetchy and tired mood. Thankfully I managed to chill during the busy Sunday shift and actually enjoyed selling a decent amount of fish from the fish counter. The day whooshed by.

Carapelli olive oil used to warm through garlic and parsley

On the previous Saturday evening I fashioned a delicious meal from some fresh Tesco rope grown mussels and added the remainder of a left over spaghetti Bolognese sauce. Inspired from a tomato and onions based dish of mussels I once had in Biarritz France (close to the Spanish border) I invented 'Moules façon Philippe'. Basically it was a kilo of cleaned mussels steamed in a fresh tasting French white wine cooked with chopped organic garlic and fresh green flat leaved parsley with the Bolognese sauce added at the last minute to add extra favour to the already sumptuous peeping orange cooked mussels in their ochre open shells. The original garlic and chopped parsley stalks were warmed through in a sensuous glug of Carapelli olive oil. Additionally I cut off a small amount of sexy St Agur blue cheese and melted it into the final dish. A delightful chat with one of my customers on Saturday afternoon actually inspired this decision. Lastly a cool dash of Crème Fraiche was splashed onto the finished dish. A rapid dash into my French style Mediterranean  garden gave the dish a chance for a photo opportunity (below) and then the food was devoured equally as quickly at my kitchen top.

Moules façon Philippe

St Agur blue cheese

Back to the Sunday evening a blush of autumnal leaves against a white washed wall made my evening complete. Such beauty discovered unexpectedly after an arduous weekend of work.

Simple Monkfish Thai curry.

Taking the centre bone out of a nice fleshy piece of monkfish is just so easy. One simple bone to whip out with a sharp knife and it is done. Then taking the creamy fish flesh I cut it up into chunks similar to a meat stew. I cooked it through in a little sunflower oil and added a small mix  of chopped spring onion, red chilli peppers and crushed lemon grass along with some left over mango thinly sliced.

 

 

I used two jars of Tesco Thai curry sauce and cooked some rice to accompany the dish. The whole thing lasted about two days and on the second day I added a few button mushrooms to thicken up the curry. Easy peasy and very tasty.

Creamy and spicy lamb stew that was once the idea for a curry

Last week Tesco had shoulder of lamb on a half price special offer so I treated myself to a whole shoulder costing around £14 and boned it out and removed the major fattier aspects of what was a predominantly lean shoulder. Starting today, Tesco counters also have leg of lamb at half price so if you dear readers are inspired by my creamy spicy lamb stew both the leg and shoulder are equally good to use.


Cut shoulder of lamb - blade side and knuckle

Cut leg of lamb - fillet and shank.
 

Right, so. Here we go folks. The initial idea was to make a lamb curry but then I got distracted by shopping for the vegetables and the finished dish, along with some fragrant herbs ended up more like a fragrant stew sweetened with Greek yoghurt.

Like in my spicy and potent lamb tagines I made a paste by finely chopping a whole bulb of fresh garlic, three or four red peppers (de-seeded), and the crunchy stalks from a big bunch of flat leaved parsley as I couldn't get coriander on the day. I added in half a dozen pods worth of little black cardamom seeds and a table spoon of ghostly ground fenugreek. All these were crushed in a pestle and mortar in a couple of unctous table spoons of  Filippo Berio olive oil.

All the vegetables had been prepared and the lamb shoulder boned and cut up before I started to cook. With the paste ready to warm through in a large cooking pot I got it to a state of sexy pungency and dropped in the shoulder of lamb pieces one by one, constantly stirring and mixing up the lamb and paste mix. Once it had really started to cook through the aroma was heavenly.

Unlike the Moroccan lamb tagines I have made in the past there wasn't any extra bulk of veg to add in and the concentration was on the lamb cooking. This took about three quarters of an hour to get the lamb to a state of edible bliss. Somewhere along the latter part of the way I tossed in the chopped onions and thinly sliced ginger which soon melted into the stew dish. I also added three or four de-seeded on the vine tomatoes that were going a bit furry on my windowsill (minus the furry bits of course), a few left over field mushrooms and the verdant leaves from the flat leaved parsley.

Turning down the gas to lowest level without it going out (especially tricky in the daylight as you can hardly see the blue flames on my cooker rings) I added nearly a full pot of 0% fat Greek style yoghurt. I purchased this on a last minute mercy run to the local Co-Op store as the dish started to evolve in my kitchen.

 

As usual I had made far too much for one person and most of the fragrant creamy lamb stew has been secreted away in the freezer in individual freezer cartons. Tonight, I ate the remaining fresh stew and enjoyed it with some steamed spinach and new potatoes. See picture at the bottom of this blog post.

 

 

It may not have turned out like the original idea of making a rogan josh style lamb curry but the contents of the freezer trays are flexible enough to add to any commercial curry sauce should I choose to in the future.

Tonight's meal.

Haggis virgin makes haggis cakes.

In all my life I have never had haggis and so when I was looking for sausage meat for a customer on Tesco Beeston's aisle twenty and saw the enticingly packaged haggis by the Simon Howie Haggis Company, I was tempted to give it a go. I wondered if Harris the chorizo loving cat would be sticking his cat nose in during the cooking time. You never know with that cat.

Yesterday I was chatting to my friend Emma Brown about this. Emma is English but lives in Leiden in Holland and we worked together on a play last December and have remained good friends ever since. Emma is as passionate about food as I am and she suggested that I might try making haggis cakes - like fish cakes but with haggis.

The haggis itself takes the longest cooking time and requires wrapping in foil and placing in a deep pan of cold water which is brought to the boil and then the haggis simmers for seventy-five minutes.

 

 

 

During the haggis cooking process I peeled some sweet potatoes and parsnips for the mashed vegetables. The spinach was steamed last minute when all the other food was cooked.

"Did you say Harris or Haggis?"

To make the cakes I mashed the vegetables with a little butter, broke up the haggis (god it smelt good!) and mixed them all up in a mixing bowl. Then I added two raw eggs, blended them in the mix by hand and finally added some shop bought breadcrumbs bit by bit until the mixture was bordering on dry. The mix was then patted into individual haggis cakes using a light dusting of plain flour to keep them from sticking to my hands as I shaped them into roughly circular shapes. The mix made nine cakes and I froze six for the future. Harris the cat wasn't that fussed about trying the haggis after all and stretched out contentedly on the path in the sun.

The haggis cakes took about seven or eight minutes to lightly fry in a frying pan. Part of me was worried that they might break up on the final cook but they held their shape well. I ate them with steamed spinach, a tomato and chilli chutney and dressed them with a little Greek yoghurt and a few summer fruits nicked from my dessert - a refreshing collection summer fruits, lemon sorbet and apricot coulis.

The Simon Howie haggis was very nice indeed; a delicate peppery/spicy taste with subtle flavours of the oatmeal and barley combined the offal ingredients. Simon Howie's website is definitely worth checking out. Click HERE for this passionate Scottish family butcher. Now when is Burn's night exactly?