Why it works: Liver and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,375 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Haggis
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the liver, lights, and heart in water for one hour. Let cool completely.
Grate the liver and chop the lights and heart very finely.
In a large bowl, mix the chopped ingredients with Jamaica pepper, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.
Chop the suet finely and add it to the mixture.
Dry the oatmeal in the oven for about 10 minutes, then add it to the mixture.
Stir in enough of the reserved boiling water to achieve a consistent mixture.
Fill a bag a little more than half full with the mixture and sew it shut with stout thread.
Place the haggis in a large pan of boiling water, pricking the skin occasionally to allow steam to escape.
Boil for three hours.
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.
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Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,375 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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