I won't be going but I will lift a glass or two of  highland single malt

Thank you! I spent a good few years in Glasgow growing up so Scottish food has always been a love of mine. Glad to hear you're a fan of it too. Oddly it took me until last year to embrace black pudding (although consider it well-embraced now - I can't get enough of the stuff).

Have you seen the collection of recipes we put together for Burns night? Those mussels are in there, and you're right, they're incredible. http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-blo … t-special/

That whiskey barley recipe sounds awesome too - what issue was it from?

I quite like Haggis ...once in a while....though I shan't be celebrating Burns night...

I find it quite strange that the English will quite happily embrace Burns night with Haggis or Scotch...and St. Patricks day with copious amounts of Guinness (Note the correct spelling of Guinness ) yet we do naff all on St. Georges day....

What is Burns night?

I love haggis.

I was supposed to be going to a big family Burns Night party - I was assigned to make the veg haggis and made one big enough for about 10 - but then the following happened:

My mother fell off a ladder and split her head open
I got a sick flu bug so bad I couldn't stand up
The village where the party was happening was entirely snowed in

So I guess it just was not meant to be veg haggis is now in the freezer for another day.

Was actually thinking of posting about haggis today, and asking who here has ever tried to make it. It's something people get freaked out about, and no wonder - every tartan tourist shop has those "traditional Scottish recipes" booklets and the teatowels with the haggis recipe, talking about hanging windpipes over the edge of pans and scrubbing out sheeps' stomachs and everything. It's enough to make any home cook run a mile, and no wonder, because making haggis is traditionally a butcher's job. Most people here would not dream of making it at home.

But here's the thing. It doesn't have to be scary. Because:

- You don't need to use a sheep's pluck. As far as I'm concerned, if you're not a butcher or a vet, leave the lungs of dead animals well alone. The idea of messing with windpipes in my own kitchen does not fill me with joy, and anyway, it's not necessary. You can switch up the offal - use just liver, or a mix of liver, heart and minced lamb, OR just minced lamb! It just has to be something vaguely meaty-tasting, as most of the flavour comes from the oats, onions and spices. the "offal" just gives depth to it. I make my veg haggis with well-fried mushrooms and a touch of Marmite, and I've had a hard time convincing people it's not the real thing.

- You don't need to put it in a casing. Personally I have never fancied making sausages at home, because feeding filling into a sausage casing is one of the grossest things the human eye can witness. And haggis is not a sausage, it's a pudding. You don't eat the skin, so it doesn't contribute anything to the eating experience. You can steam haggis in a basin like any other pudding, or even cook it in a casserole dish in the oven, and it turns out just the same.

These are the things that I love about Jamie's haggis recipe in Jamie's Great Britain. He tarted it up a bit too much for my Presbyterian sensibilities (bacon and whisky? In haggis?), but he switched up the offal for things which are easy to get and not intimidating, and he baked it in a casserole dish. Both of these things make it about a million times more approachable as a home recipe.

He also left out the suet and replaced it with broth, which I do with veg haggises - it makes the texture a touch less gorgeous, but also makes it less likely to take its revenge the next day, because traditional haggis, despite being a poverty dish, is insanely rich!

For anyone who's curious about what haggis tastes like but doesn't want to face the whole offal angle at all, take a recipe like Jamie's and replace all the offal with minced lamb. The result will be a little milder-tasting than the traditional version, but it won't be far off.