What is "red pudding"

n. A battered, deep-fry meat dish resembling a sausage.

Red pudding is a meat dish served mainly at chip shops in parts of East Scotland as an alternative to fish (see fish and chips). The ingredients are bacon, beef, pork, pork rind, suet, rusk, wheat flour, spices, salt, beef fat and colouring.

This clumpy red-coloured mixture is formed into a large sausage-like shape of roughly eight inches in length, no different from its black and white pudding relatives and the chip shop variant of haggis. To encase it, the food is thickly coated in batter, deep fried, and served hot, ready to be taken away. Bought on its own it is known as a single red, or when accompanied by chips it is known as a red pudding supper.

There is also a highly seasoned red pudding which is made entirely of pork and is made in a ring just like black pudding. It is very finely minced, and identified by being in a red casing, just as black pudding is sold in a black casing. This red pudding is completely different from the red pudding available in chip shops. It was traditionally made by "German" pork butchers in parts of Scotland, mostly on the East coast. It was traditionally cooked for breakfast.