Haggis Burger you say? I’ve got a tasty treat for you!

Over the past month, I’ve been taking part in a #burgeroff competition organised on Twitter by @RateMySausage

Back in January, I was asked to submit photos and a description of a burger that I’d made from scratch to enter into the month-long competition against 31 entries.

The ethos behind the competition and previous rounds have been to support independent butchers, local food producers and source ingredients with low food miles.

Competitors from across the globe have taken part, from the USA and Australia as well as the UK. Of course a burger is a dish celebrated across the world and everyone has a slightly different take on what they enjoy to eat.

As part of the competition, we also had to prepare and cook two side dishes, which proved quite controversial with rules being set for what constituted a side or not, to be fair to all. Coleslaw or wedges were acceptable for example but a sauce wasn’t.

So I set about planning what I might cook for my entry. My life motto is ‘dare to be different’ so I wanted to think outside the box.

Having recently written an article in my local newspaper about haggis ahead of burns night and how versatile a dish that could be, I was inspired to explore the possibility of making a haggis burger. With our family roots firmly connected to Scotland, as well as being farmers and food producers ourselves, it lent itself to be a dish of champions… surely!

I came across a recipe on the Macsween Haggis website and wondered if I could replicate something similar. Being social media and PR savvy, I thought why not drop the company a line and tell them what I’m doing in case they could help me with some advice or top tips.

Well, you’ll never guess that Managing director James MacSween himself gave me a call to chat through my plans. From that conversation the ‘Beyond Burns Night Burger was born’.

A burger combined with Macsween’s haggis and lambs mince from our farm with some oil was all that was needed for the actually burger. Teamed with a homemade whisky sauce and mozzarella cheese and lettuce served in a toasted scotch roll bun.

The sides were inspired by the other elements of a burns night supper (neaps and tatties) so I made some salt and pepper potato wedges and some poached tatties with cheese and bacon, which made the most wonderful side to dip the wedges into!

My entry appeared on the @ratemysausage twitter feed on 6th February and followers and judges had to rate my burger from 1 – 10 and give some feedback.

What’s really tricky is photographing your burger so that everyone can see what you’ve made, how it was put together and how mouth-watering it could potentially be, along with a short description.

As we all know, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, but with this competition that was not possible. So I spent a while tarting up my cooked burger and side dishes to make it social media worthy, before serving up the rest to my hungry boys.

As a Farmers Wife and busy mum of two I love to cook but I’m no professional. I like good, honest food and support local producers where possible as well as growing / rearing our own. I hoped that my burger conveyed this as I neatly displayed in on a plate with some tartan around the plate and in the background was one of our sheep grazing just out in the Orchard. Perfect.

Well, I’m pretty chuffed to say that my burger made the cut with an overall score of 8.26 out of 10, where I ended up being 8th out of 31 on the scoreboard.

I had some wonderful comments, with many people saying what a different take on a traditional burger and that they’d love to have a try of it.

I couldn’t be happier.