Aberdeen Roll

This is a traditional Scottish recipe (from the city of Aberdeen) for a classic meat dumpling of beef and bacon that is boiled in a cloth and is served cold and sliced. This recipe originates from the 1930s, though the dish itself has a much longer ancestry.

Ingredients:

450g minced beef

90g breadcrumbs

450g bacon,

minced 2 eggs

2 tsp mixed spice

1/4 onion, very finely chopped

salt and freshly-ground black pepper

60g fried breadcrumbs to coat the cooked roll

Method:

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands. Tie in a piece of muslin or cheesecloth (tie as a roll, like a cracker, but allow a little space for the contents to swell) then add to a large pan of boiling water. Cook for 3 hours then remove from the pot and allow to cool completely before unwrapping and sprinkling with the fried breadcrumbs. Serve either cold or fried in butter.

Another version of the recipe:

Equal quantities of

beef,

bacon and

onion are minced and

mixed with rolled oats (equal to one third the weight of the beef),

flavoured with mustard

and Worcestershire sauce and brought together with

beaten egg.

This mixture is then packed in a tin with a foil cover, and baked in the oven in a bain-marie at 180°C for an hour. It may then be eaten hot immediately or, if to be eaten cold, soaked while hot in as much beef s tock as it will absorb, cooled in the refrigerator, turned out and sliced.

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