Scottish Hitchers: mince and tatties

They have mince and mash in liverpool but the onion goes in whole and it's cooked for about 3 hours.

Knownowt, I know you would just LOVE stovies. ? <pieman>it's boiled sausages (or leftover brisket) and potatoes, with a stock cube if your from the west</pieman> ?

I don't like stovies, people think I'm odd.

We were once at a 21st or engagement party at the local pub and stovies were served half way through the evening. Most people dug in only to discover that the person who'd made them had run out of tatties so bunged in a load of frozen chips. Which were still frozen. A friend commented to the mum of the girl whose party it was that they were rank (thinking the pub had provided them), it turned out she'd made them...

Eugh! Chips?! That sounds revolting.

I love stovies with either grated brisket or preferably sausages but with no stock cube, just potatoes and onion. It has to be in the winter <my mum> when you get potatoes that fall</my mum> though. Yum, yum, yum.

One of the best wedding receptions I've been to had stovies instead of a buffet, served with buttered French (?) bread. Mmmm.

Mrs M, I did actually think I'd quite like stovies from your description- I love sausages- but then I looked up a picture (NB this is the first pic that came up on google images and is from a site called

That's glasweigian stovies. We don't use any kind of gravy in the east and we cut the potatoes into smaller chunks so they break up a bit.

I agree, that doesn't look very nice!

More like this.

Stovies are a regular in our house in the winter, much more so than mince and tatties. Stovies rock.

To me stovies is any left over meat and tatties and maybe veg mixed together - so you'd make stovies with left over mince and tatties, for example.

In Aberdeen, it's served in cups with an oat cake ?

That does look a lot nicer, Mrs Magic.

Can I ask I Scottish food question? on a recent trip to Scotland I had something called "Scottish pie". Is this a genuine Scottish thing or just what that particular cafe called their pie?

Never heard of a Scottish pie. But there's a thing calleed Scotch pies. Now that I suspect they really do serve in prison because they can be quite grim. You get a better version called steak pie, which actually has chunks of beef, but Scotch pie i think is traditionally mutton but most likely includes the animal bits no one else wants... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_pie

You'd usually buy such a thing in a bakery or a cafe. It's the brother to the absolutely delicious but coronary blocking macaroni pie.

http://www.scotsmeat.com/acatalog/Scottish_Pies.html

Do you mean Scotch pie? Yum. Pie, beans and chips, a staple of my childhood.

Oh, it might have been Scotch pie. It was like sausage meat in pastry (but not a sausage roll)- I suppose the same as Scotch egg but in a pie, without the egg.

Macaroni pie sounds quite nice.

Scotch pies are nice in decent bakery! ?

Macaroni pies are grim, it's like cold heinz macaroni in a pastry case.

I've never heard of mince, gravy and veg going into stovies! ?

By Tatties, do you mean potato? For some reason I thought tatties were some kind of hash brown type food.

I think stovies are quite regional tbh, everyone sees to have a different opinion...

Macaroni pies are nice in Aberdeen - made with proper cheese, not Heinzy at all. I guess it does all depends on the quality of the baker. ?

Of course, if you have a deep fried macaroni pie from Stonehaven, that is utterly vile...

Tatties are indeed potatoes Hyacinth, usually mash if it says 'xxxx and tatties'. ?

I might try one when I visit Aberdeen Zebra so I can try them there as I adore macaroni cheese. ? at deep fried.

An I thought mince and tatties was some kind of traditional regional dish, when its the same thing my Mum served us up throughout our childhood ?

I love scotch pies. I was thinking about them this afternoon after I started this thread. Mmmmm. Best with just a few beans (enough to cover the pie, but not spill over the "rim"), then drizzled with brown sauce.

ANYWAY, I'm sure you'll all be delighted to hear that the mince and tatties went down well. Mince, with onion (red onion as it was all I had?), peas and sliced carrots, in gravy, with doughballs, and boiled potatoes. Boys loved them; Mike said, "It's a bit bland". <cue daggers from me>? but he accepted that it was traditional Scots food so he could probably live with it a couple of times a month. And he did clean his plate (especially the doughballs).

So thanks all for helping me out with my nostalgia-fest.?

So Beef Olives? There Scottish aren't they? My Grandmother lives just outside of Selkirk and we all love her beef Olives.

What hapened to my last reply? ?

Anyway I love a Scotch pie. Either with beans & chips, or with oxo. Just a pie & oxo in a bowl. Yummmmm.

Scotch pies rule. When we were kids Mum used to pipe mashed potato into the rim and make a smiley face with baked beans. ? Sadly I developed an intolerance to mutton so can't have them any more. ☹️

Mince and tatties is what I crave most when I go up to see my folks. The local beef where my parents live in Perthshire is just fabulous and when it's that good, you don't want to cover the taste up with tomatoes, pancetta etc. Just good old plain mince and tatties. And beef olives. Yum.

Nonie, is a morning roll the same as a buttery rowie? If so, you've got me craving them now. I went to uni in Aberdeen and breakfast was always cereal followed by a toasted, buttered rowie... or two. ? I think we should start a petition to get them sold south of the border. Actually, even in Central Scotland would be good so my mum could send me a regular supply. I tried making them once from a recipe in my Ena Baxter cook book but they didn't turn out the same.

The militant anti-English nutters in Scotland should organise this and increase coronary artery disease across England. Only 800 kcal or so per lardy rowie, not counting extra butter and jam. ?

I'm so grateful I was vegetarian as a teenager - it stopped me eating them and probably extended my life by 10 years ?

"The best way to describe their look and taste is a saltier, flatter and greasier Croissant." Hm, don't they sound just delicious? ? I'd choose a buttery over a croissant any day.

Zebra, a little of what you fancy does you good, you know. One buttery now and then does not a heart attack make. Besides, we needed the extra lard to get through the bitter Aberdeen winters. ?

Mmm, I love butteries. They are an occasional Sunday treat here.

Oh I know, it's just that I know so many people in Aberdeen who have one every morning for their fly cup - I think they may better be described as a saltier, flatter and greasier croissant with a heavy sprinkly of cocaine for their addictiveness. ?

So true about the winters, the north wind doth blow.

? at this thread, and Zeb getting all sensitive about Scottish culinary heritage. My Grandma died before she could inflict any of her national cuisine on us, although her tablet recipe stayed in the family for ages ?

I'm afraid I agree that mince and mashed potato sounds like boarding school food.

South African culinary tradition is full of weird and grim things too - potatoes served with rice; carrots cooked with sugar; boiled pumpkin; boiled courgettes - bleurgh. Thankfully my mother never cooked any of that, although she did have occasional rushes of blood to the head that resulted in beef stew with prunes and similar weirdness.

I used to have them every morning too but that was more than twenty years ago when I knew no better and pretty much thought I was invincible anyway. ? I'd still like the option to have one of a Sunday morning nowadays though. I've saved that link of Nonie's so maybe I'll have another go at making them and stock the freezer for that purpose.

I bought some snowballs (the cake version, not the mallow ones) in my mum's local Co-op to bring home with me. They were dry as a biscuit and vile. I feel so cheated. I was so looking forward to them. Why do I never seem to bring back anything healthy? I should have come home loaded with fresh raspberries and tayberries. ?

I do draw the line at tablet and macaroon though. I can't even pretend they're anything but pure sugar and my teeth ache at the mere thought of them.

Oh my Gran used to have the mallow snowballs at tea (dinner) on a Sunday evening. Rhys had a Tunnock's teacake for the first time when we were up last week and his face was a picture when he got past the chocolate shell ?

I miss macaroni pies and Orkney Dark Island ale and 80/- ale. We had tablet at our wedding. ? My friend made three batches and it vanished in seconds. ?

My grandmother was a scot and I was brought up on weekly servings of mince and tatties which I loved, and will now have to resurrect now that I've been reminded so thank you! Grandma also thought that a 'jammy piece' was a suitable meal for a child at breakfast, lunch, tea - that was it. I loved it but mum had to remind her that there were other things for me to eat besides bread and jam.

Scotch pies - my father (not a scot) loves these but due to actually having coronary heart disease is allowed only one a year, on his birthday. He also loves haggis (ditto).

What's a 'fly cup'?

In the almost 11 years I've lived in Aberdeen, I have eaten about 4 butteries (rowies). We went to the Inversnecky (or it could have been the Washington) cafe at the beach one winter afternoon for lunch and my OH asked for a roll to go with his egg and chips (for making a chip buttie) and got a rowie when he should have asked for a softie.

When I go to my old home town, I have to make a stop (or get my sister go in the morning if I don't get there in time) at the bakery for their rolls and steak rounds. Their version of a scotch pie is a "Mince Pie" and oohh it's fab. So are their mince rounds come to think of it....

Want an Oliphants (found in linlithgow) mince pie now... Aberdeen ones don't touch it.

a quick cuppa IIRC

Thank you - makes sense!

I love this thread ?

We used to have mince and tatties quite regularly, with lots of brown sauce. My sister and I would mash it all up together and pile it up and say we'd made Fraggle Rock ?

Other favourite things include square sausage and fritter rolls - my English H2B was quite confused by the idea of fritter rolls till I made him try one ?

Pie, beans and chips, mmm and as for tablet, yes it's pure sugar but oh so nice. Zebra, I like the idea of having some at the wedding, I think there's not enough Scottishness currently in the plan for mine, I might investigate making some tablet!