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Royal Haggis

A Scottish meat mixture wrapped in a caul, baked and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,373 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Royal Haggis

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Lay the caul in a dish nearly as deep as a punch bowl.

  2. Mix the chopped mutton with suet, beef marrow, bread crumbs, egg yolks, anchovies, red wine, lemon rind, white pepper, and salt.

  3. Fill the caul with the mixture and fold it over to close.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  2. Turn it onto a dish and pour hot brown gravy over it.

  3. Serve with venison sauce in a separate boat.

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. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

  2. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Beef + red winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  5. Lemon + white peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meaty body and substance of the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and tender as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling together and help it set when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the filling a softer, lighter texture.
Red wine
Adds moisture and acidity that deepen the savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Fold the caul closed around the filling. The caul is the only casing holding the mixture together, so it must be sealed well to keep the filling moist and prevent it leaking during baking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mutton, beef, egg, red wine, lemon):

  1. Pepperfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mutton, beef, egg, red wine, 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.

More haggis recipes

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

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