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To Make Haggis

A Scottish dish of sheep heart, livers, beef suet, raisins, spices, and other ingredients boiled in a sheep bag.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Make Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Blanch and chop the sheep heart and livers.

  2. Add the chopped beef suet, soaked French roll crumbs, spices, sweet wine, raisins, flour, salt, and egg yolks.

  3. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Prepare a cleaned sheep's bag and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Tie the bag tightly and boil for 3 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
French roll crumbs
Soaked in cream, they absorb liquid and help give the filling a soft, tender texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and add richness as the filling sets.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the filling.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture so it holds together in the bag.

The step that matters

Tie the bag tightly. A tight seal keeps water from entering and stops the filling from escaping or loosening while it boils. Leave some room for the filling to expand, since the contents swell as they cook.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, cream, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, wine, raisin):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cream, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, wine, raisin. 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.

More haggis recipes

Scotch 53Scottish 5Dundee 3Sheep's 3 See all 31 →

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