Haggis Lasagne

Recipe taken from Dewsbury Minster 2008 Cookbook by M Firth

Ingredients

• 1 large haggis, about 900g
• 250g no pre-cook lasagne
• 3-4 large ripe tomatoes, sliced

For the sauce

• 40g butter
• 40g plain flour
• 5ml milk
• 3 tbsp freshly grated parmesan cheese
• Olive oil to drizzle

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Cut open haggis and crumble with your fingers.  Scatter some over the base of a buttered lasagne dish.  Top with a third of the lasagne sheets and then top with more haggis.  Add a layer of tomatoes and season well, then cover with more lasagne sheets and remaining haggis.  Finish with remaining lasagne.

To make the sauce:
Melt butter in a pan and stir in flour to make a roux.  Gradually add milk, stirring or whisking to form a sauce.  Stir for 3-4 minutes then season with salt and pepper.  Pour sauce over lasagne, top with cheese and drizzle oil.  Bake, uncovered for 50-55 minutes, or until lasagne is soft.  Rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Custard Cream Hearts

Ingredients

• 175g plain flour
• 3 tablespoons custard powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 50g unsalted butter
• 50g vegetable shortening
• 3 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon milk or more to bind

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius/gas mark 4. 

To make the biscuits, put flour, custard powder and baking powder into a processor and pulse mix.  Add the butter, cut into smallish cubes and add the vegetable shortening, in mounded teaspoonfuls, and pulse to cut into the flour to create a crumbly mixture.  Tip in the sugar and pulse again, and then beat the egg and tablespoon of milk together.  Pour down the funnel of the processor with the engine running until it clumps together in a ball.  Go cautiously: you may not need all of the egg and milk or you may need to add more milk to make it come together.  Form the dough into a ball, press down into a flat disk, then wrap in clingwrap, let it rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.  Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 4mm.  Dip a 5cm heart-shaped cutter in flour and then cut out your shapes.  You want an even number of hearts, as you will sandwich them together later.  It is possible to get about 30 biscuits out of the dough, but you can get more if you pre-roll the pastry.  Prick the outside edge of each heart all the way around on one side with a corn on the cob holder, or other pointed implement.  Cook on a lined baking sheet for 15 minutes, and then let the biscuits cool on a rack before sandwiching them. 

To make the custard cream, put the powder and icing sugar into the processor and pulse briefly to combine and delump.  Add the butter, and blitz together until you get a smooth cream.  Add the teaspoon of boiling water and pulse again.  Sandwich each biscuit with about 1 teaspoon of custard cream, by gently spreading a layer of the cream over the unpricked side of a biscuit and then wriggling a matching top on to it.  This helps avoid crumbling and breakage, as the biscuits are quite frangible.