What exactly are stovies?

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A question for my fellow Scots. What exactly are stovies? What makes them stovies as the ingredients seem to vary so much?

I am Scottish but I’ve never had them in my life and they don’t appeal to me so I asked my (Also Scottish) Mother who hasn’t had them either and is equally stumped. So what makes stovies just that?

TIA

Stovies in my family are potatoes, onions, grated carrot and good square sausage all boiled together
But everyone does it different

Its same as mince and tatties but you use corned beef.

It varies from region to region, in our house it's only ever made with lamb leftover from our Sunday roast, onions, seasonings& potatoes. Chop it all up, boil in a pan of water until everything is tender then drain & mash. Sounds bland, looks a bit meh, tastes amazing !

It varies. It was traditionally made with leftover roast beef, tatties, onions and some sort of gravy.
My mother's consisted of corned beef, tatties, onions and gravy browning mixed with some water. Lovely with an oatcake and some beetroot.
Saturday lunch in our house every week. My mother's stovies were lovely but I made it once and it was horrible.

Potatoes, onions, beef dripping with the remains of a roast, corned beef or mince added, although a local hotel does great stovies with sausages thrown in. Served with oatcakes and beetroot

Leftover lamb potatoes/parsnips seasoning onion and gravy here. Probably more like Scouse. Mums had corned beef in it.

I used to live in Edinburgh and saw 2 versions. Sausage or corned beef.

Sorry but that's a gads min from Ne Scotland.
Tatties, onion, stewing steak and oatcakes on the side with a wee bit of beetroot.

skinned beef links fried in lard with onions until all broken up then tatties added with stock/gravy and cooked still it’s all a bit mushed up… served with oatcakes & brown sauce

Traditionally they are made from left over roast meat, potatoes, onions and gravy. Boiled on the stove. More modern takes use sausages or resemble a corned beef hash as a specific dish made rather than a leftover dish.

I’ve not heard the word gads for years. It’s so expressive..’Aw Gads!!’

Is it like corned beef hash or more like a faggot?

In my house it’s potatoes, onions and square sausage

Left over roast lamb, sliced raw potatoes, sliced onions pan fried preferably in lamb fat, then everything layered in a saucepan starting with the fried onions, then lamb, then the sliced potatoes. Add salt and pepper to your taste. Then repeat the layers until all is used up. Then cook on very low for around 2 hours. Stir with a wooden spoon and then serve.

Laughing at "Gads min" although my neck of the woods would be "gyad" 🤣

Nae Lorne or any kind of sausages or vegetables in stovis to my knowledge

I say gads but not gads min (what's the min part?)

Where I am, it's normally weddings you see stovies at and you're offered either sausage stovies or corned beef stovies. Tatties, onions and the meat basically.

No Scot of my generation would touch corned beef in any meal - re botulism outbreak in Aberdeen.

It was typhoid

Ours was only ever potato and corned beef- but I'm sure a bit of onion and carrot was also acceptable. It seems to be a personal thing to use up left overs and doesn't have a 'rule' as such

Sorry, typhoid outbreak.

I’m from the east coast, my granny made stovies with onions, tatties and beef dripping and never any meat!

my dh, from the west coast, makes them more like mash with corned beef mixed through.

my step mum, also on the west coast, makes them in a pressure cooker and does layers of tatties, onions, carrots and sliced sausage. Then once cooked mash it all together, they were amazing!

Apologies if I came across as bit blunt not my intention.
Back to the weird and wonderful world of stovies 👍😁

My dad always made it with mashed tatties, corned beef and onions (east central Scotland although he's from the north). I couldn't eat mine without a shit tonne of brown sauce though.

I'm Ayrshire, we make it using skinless links, slice sausage, Potato's, carrot, turnip, onions and gravy.

Stovies! I haven’t thought of them for years. We used to make them with leftover roast beef, roast potatoes and onions and gravy. Definitely not corned beef (Aberdeen based!)