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He Haggis

A boiled mixture of liver, suet, onions, oatmeal, spices, and gravy, cooked in a bag.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

He Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Boil the water for 1.5 hours.

  2. After 1 hour, add the liver to the boiling water.

  3. Trim skins and discolored parts from the liver.

  4. Grate half of the liver and mince the rest finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated liver, minced liver, suet, onions, oatmeal (or crumbled oat-cakes), salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne.

  2. Moisten the mixture with gravy and lemon juice.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the mixture into a prepared bag, leaving room for swelling, and sew it securely.

  2. Plunge the bag into boiling water and boil gently for 3 hours.

  3. Prick the bag with a needle occasionally to release air.

  4. Serve hot without sauce or gravy.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Liver
Gives the haggis its rich, savoury flavour and a dense, meaty body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and tender as it cooks.
Oatmeal
Absorbs liquid and fat, giving the filling a firm, crumbly structure.
Onions
Contribute aroma and a mild sweetness to the savoury filling.
Gravy
Moistens the mixture so the oats and liver cook through softly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich liver and fat flavours.

The step that matters

Leave room for swelling and prick the bag. Oats absorb liquid and the mixture expands and gives off steam as it boils. Without room to swell and an occasional release of trapped air, the bag can burst or the haggis can turn dense and uneven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, nutmeg, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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