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Scotch Haggis

A traditional Scottish dish made by boiling a sheep's stomach stuffed with oatmeal, onions, beef suet, liver, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scotch Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the sheep's stomach well with warm water.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the oatmeal, minced onions, pepper, salt, minced beef suet, and grated liver.

  2. Fill the sheep's stomach moderately with the mixture.

Cook

  1. Boil the filled stomach for 2 hours.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Beef + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Absorbs liquid and fat, giving the haggis its crumbly, filling body.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich during boiling.
Liver
Contributes savoury depth and body to the filling.
Onions
Add sweetness and moisture to the filling as they cook.

The step that matters

Fill the stomach moderately. Oatmeal and other fillings swell as they cook, and an overfilled stomach can burst. Leaving room lets the contents expand safely while boiling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, beef, liver. 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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