Haggis Lasagne

I’m not much in the habit of blogging about food (usually because I’m too busy stuffing it into my mouth to pause long enough to actually consider it) but I mentioned my husband’s plan to make haggis lasagne on Twitter over the weekend and… well, it seemed like it was a thing people liked the sound of. A lot.

So. I’m pleased to report that haggis lasagne, as a thing, works. It’s pretty easy to adapt a standard lasagne recipe to make it (there’s also a variation here, plus the Guardian’s article on ideas for leftover haggis) and we based ours roughly on my mother’s lasagne. I’ve probably left a dozen things out of the recipe, but you’ll get the idea…

HAGGIS LASAGNE

 

– for the ragu –

2 shallots

1 stick celery

1 red pepper

1/2 green pepper

Handful cherry tomatoes, chopped

2 tins chopped tomatoes

Tomato puree

Flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Red wine

Worcestershire sauce

Haggis (we used two MacSween 3-person haggises – haggii? – which came to about 1kg in total)

Oregano

– for the béchamel sauce –

Butter

Flour

Milk

– to finish –

Lasagne sheets

Grated parmesan (or similar)

Nutmeg

Salt & pepper to taste

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Resurrection Cheese

Best. Name. Ever.

If you want to make cheese, you need a cheese press – but in 19th Century West Wales, not everyone could afford to buy one.

So, what do you do?

You improvise.

What’s big and flat and heavy, and easy to come by if you live in a semi-rural area…?

Yeah. That’d do it.

The full story…

Resurrection cheese is what resulted when, in the 1860s, a townsman of Llanfihangel Abercowyn, in the Carmarthen county of Wales, wanted to make cheese but didn’t have enough money for the proper equipment. He didn’t make a deal with the devil in exchange for a cheese-press; rather, he called upon his resourcefulness, made a trip to the abandoned graveyard in town, and with a few fallen headstones he fashioned his own cheese press.

Farmhouse cheeses were large — sometimes nearly two feet in diameter — and circular; and evidently, able to easily copy the inscription of a headstone. When this townsman sold his cheese at the market, with a clear gravestone inscription, one of his customers exclaimed, “You have resurrected this cheese from Llanfihangel churchyard!” From then on, its “official” name was resurrection cheese.