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English Haggis

A steamed dish of sheep tongue, liver, kidneys, bacon, bread crumbs, anchovies, lemon, pepper, salt, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

English Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Weigh and chop the tongue, liver, and kidneys of a sheep.

Make the mixture

  1. Add half their weight in minced fat bacon, bread crumbs, pounded anchovies, lemon juice, grated lemon rind, pepper, salt, and beaten eggs.

  2. Stir well and pour the mixture into a mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 2 hours and then turn out.

  2. Serve hot, with a sauce if desired.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together731 recipes

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it hold its shape when steamed.
Stale bread
Absorbs moisture and adds body, giving the haggis a softer texture.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and richness, keeping the mixture moist during steaming.
Anchovies
Contribute savoury depth that rounds out the meaty flavour.
Sheep tongue, liver and kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, providing its meaty flavour and texture.

“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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