Aberdeen Rowies

Legend has it that the Aberdeen rowie, roll or butterie came into being when a local fisherman, scunnered with living off hard ship’s biscuit on long forays into the North Sea fish, met up with his friendly local baker.

‘Fit wey can ye no mak a better rowie for takkin on the boatie?’ asks the fisherman.

‘Nae bother ava,’ says the baker. ‘Jist gie me a few days, an I’ll hae something for ye.’

So the baker starts off with a lump from his daily bread dough. To make a keeping-rowie, he knows he must add fat. The most readily available is meat dripping from the butcher, it’s also the least likely to toughen the rowie. He mixes the dripping with some dough to make it more pliable, rolls out some plain bread dough and covers it with the fatty-dripping dough. Folds it, rolls it, kneads it and then cuts it up into misshapen mounds which he flattens into the same large thin round shape as his normal softies.