Red pudding is a meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

 dish served mainly at chip shops in parts of Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 as an alternative to fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 (see fish and chips

Fish and chips

Fish and chips is a popular take-away food in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada...

). The ingredients consist of bacon

Bacon

Bacon is a cured meat prepared from a pig. It is first cured using large quantities of salt, either in a brine or in a dry packing; the result is fresh bacon . Fresh bacon may then be further dried for weeks or months in cold air, boiled, or smoked. Fresh and dried bacon must be cooked before eating...

, beef

Beef

Beef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially domestic cattle. Beef can be harvested from cows, bulls, heifers or steers. It is one of the principal meats used in the cuisine of the Middle East , Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Europe and the United States, and is also important in...

, port

Port wine

Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, and comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties...

, pork rind

Pork rind

Pork rind , is the fried or roasted skin of a pig. Frying melts most of the fat from the pork rind...

, suet

Suet

Suet is raw beef or mutton fat, especially the hard fat found around the loins and kidneys.Suet has a melting point of between 45° and 50°C and congelation between 37° and 40°C....

, rusks, spices, salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

, beef stock

Stock (food)

Stock is a flavoured water preparation. It forms the basis of many dishes, particularly soups and sauces.- Preparation :Stock is made by simmering various ingredients in water, including some or all of the following...

, beef fat

Fat

Fats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and generally insoluble in water. Chemically, fats are triglycerides, triesters of glycerol and any of several fatty acids. Fats may be either solid or liquid at room temperature, depending on their structure...

 and colouring

Carmine

Carmine , also called Crimson Lake, Cochineal, Natural Red #4, C.I. 75470, or E120, is a pigment of a bright-red color obtained from the aluminum salt of carminic acid, which is produced by some scale insects, such as the cochineal beetle and the Polish cochineal, and is used as a general term for...

.

This clumpy red-coloured mixture is then formed into a large sausage-like shape of roughly eight inches in length, no different from its black and white pudding

White pudding

White pudding or oatmeal pudding is a meat dish popular in Scotland, Ireland, Northumberland, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. White pudding is very similar to black pudding, but does not include blood. Consequently, it consists of pork meat and fat, suet, bread, and oatmeal formed into the shape of...

 relatives. To encase it, the food is thickly coated in batter

Batter (cooking)

Batter is a semi-liquid mixture of one or more flours combined with liquids such as water, milk or eggs used to prepare various foods. Often a leavening agent such as baking powder is included to aerate and fluff up the batter as it cooks, or the mixture may be naturally fermented for this purpose...

, 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.

The taste is said to be similar to a saveloy

Saveloy

A saveloy is a type of highly seasoned sausage, usually bright red in colour, which is typically available in English fish and chips shops,but more often from pork shops sometimes fried in batter...

, a type of pork sausage, though battered sausage

Battered sausage

Battered sausages are a type of cuisine, found all across the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. They are similar in concept to a corn dog, but consist of a pork sausage, dipped in batter, , and usually served with chips.There are 750 calories in a typical battered sausage...

 is also served in Scotland (in addition to red pudding on menus) that could be more akin to saveloy. Some red puddings do not taste like saveloy as they have no smoked meat in them, a large amount of pepper, and are quite pale in colour.

There is also a red pudding which is made entirely of pork, is highly seasoned, 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, often replacing sausages.

Red Puddings are referred to as "Russians" in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, usually available at Fish and Chips shops as a popular alternative to fish.