Mealie pudding is the Scottish white pudding, and it may contain no meat at all. It is oatmeal, beef suet and onion, seasoned with salt and pepper, stuffed into a casing, poached, then sliced and fried — the oat version of a black pudding with the blood left out. The diagnostic is exactly that absence: an Irish white pudding is a pork-and-oatmeal sausage with liver in it, while a Scottish mealie pudding is oats held together by suet, savoury and nutty, eaten with the fry-up or alongside mince and tatties. “Mealie” means made of meal — oatmeal, the grain of Scotland. It exists because oats were the staple and meat was scarce; the same mixture, fried loose in a pan instead of cased, is skirlie, served with game and roast chicken. Without blood and with no muscle meat, it is the easiest pudding to make in a home kitchen. The suet must be fresh beef suet from a butcher, and the oats must be medium or pinhead oatmeal, not rolled oats. I have not made this one yet; the formula is built from Marianski’s white pudding with oatmeal and Scottish home recipes, and is untested.
Ingredients
PUDDING (about 1.6 kg / 3.5 lb)
- 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) medium or pinhead Scottish oatmeal
- 300 g (10½ oz) fresh beef suet, membrane removed, finely chopped or grated
- 300 g (10½ oz) onion, finely chopped
- 400 ml (1⅔ cups) whole milk, for soaking the oats
- 16 g (2¾ tsp) fine salt — 1% of the mix
- 4 g (2 tsp) white pepper
- 2 g (1 tsp) black pepper
- 1 large egg, optional, for a firmer slice
- 32–35 mm natural hog casing, about 2.5 m (8 ft)
Directions
Key ingredients
- In the collection: oatmeal and suet. Compare with Irish White Pudding (pork, liver, oats) and Stornoway-Style Black Pudding (the same suet and oats, plus blood).
- Toast and soak the oats: toast the oatmeal in a dry pan or at 180 °C / 350 °F for 10 minutes until it smells nutty, cool it, then soak it in the milk overnight in the fridge. Toasting gives the flavour; soaking starts the swelling so the puddings cook through without bursting.
- Chop the suet fine: grate frozen suet or pulse it in a processor to 2–3 mm. Big pieces render out and leave holes.
- Mix: combine oats (and any unabsorbed milk), suet, raw onion, salt, pepper and egg if using. The mixture should be loose and crumbly but hold when squeezed.
- Taste: fry a spoonful in a pan for 5 minutes. It should be well salted and peppery; bland mealie pudding is the usual complaint.
- Fill loosely: stuff the hog casing only about two-thirds full and tie into 15 cm (6 in) puddings, leaving slack. Oats swell further in the pot; an over-filled casing splits.
- Poach: lower into water at 80–85 °C / 176–185 °F and hold it there for 40–45 minutes, until the centre is firm and above 80 °C, so the oats are fully cooked. Prick any that float with a needle. Do not boil.
- Chill: cool in cold water and refrigerate overnight. They keep a week and freeze well.
- Serve: slice and fry in the bacon fat, or split and heat whole. Or skip the casing entirely and fry the raw mixture in dripping for 10–15 minutes, stirring, for skirlie.
Notes
Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Marianski’s “White Pudding with Oatmeal” is the backbone: 400 g beef suet to 600 g oatmeal, 20 g salt, 2 g white pepper, 30 g chopped onion (or 60 g leek), an egg and a little water; steel-cut oats soaked overnight in milk; 26–32 mm hog casing; simmered at 80–85 °C for 30 minutes. Deviations: (1) suet reduced to a 1:2 ratio with the oats, closer to Scottish home recipes; (2) onion raised from his 3% to about 18% — Scottish recipes use a lot of onion and his low figure is the outlier; (3) oats toasted first; (4) poaching lengthened to 40–45 minutes for the larger 32–35 mm casing. Untested.
Where mealie pudding came from. Oatmeal was the staple grain of Scotland until the twentieth century, and puddings of oats and fat — with blood (black) or without (white) — were made at the autumn killing of a cow, sheep or pig, using its suet and guts. The white pudding was the version that did not depend on blood, and so could be made from suet and meal kept through the winter. Marianski notes that older white puddings were richer and sometimes included dates, currants and saffron. In Gaelic it is given as marag gheal, white pudding.
Mealie, skirlie and white pudding. The same mixture of oats, fat and onion is three things: cased and poached, it is mealie or white pudding; fried loose in a pan, it is skirlie; stuffed inside a chicken, it is a skirlie stuffing. The difference is the vessel, not the recipe.
Not the Irish white pudding. Irish white pudding is a pork-and-oatmeal sausage with liver; Scottish mealie pudding can be made with no meat at all. The two names are often used as if they were one product, and they are not.
Variations. Leeks instead of onion; a little mace or nutmeg; pork trimmings or bacon added (Marianski notes this is common); dripping instead of suet; cooked in a cloth as one large pudding.
Sourcing and gear. Fresh beef suet from any butcher; boxed shredded suet works but contains flour. Medium oatmeal from Scottish brands or pinhead (steel-cut) oats; rolled oats turn to paste.
Still open. No historic Scottish recipe with weights has been compared, and regional differences (north-east versus west coast) are not documented here.
The photo. No open-licensed photograph of a mealie pudding exists; the photograph is a Scottish fish-and-chip shop, the place a white pudding supper is usually bought.
Read more on the site. What Is a Sausage? · Puddings and Loaves