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A Scotch Haggis

A traditional Scottish dish made by stuffing a sheep's stomach with liver, heart, lungs, suet, oatmeal, onions, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Scotch Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stomach

  1. Wash the sheep's stomach with cold water until clean.

  2. Turn the stomach inside out.

  3. Scald the stomach and scrape it quickly with a knife.

  4. Soak the stomach in cold salt water until needed.

Prepare the filling

  1. Parboil the liver, lungs, and heart.

  2. Grate the liver.

  3. Mince the lungs and heart finely.

  4. Mince the suet.

  5. Toast the oatmeal cakes before the fire.

  6. Mix all the ingredients together.

  7. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

Fill and boil

  1. Fill the stomach bag with the mixture.

  2. Add a little water used to boil the onions for flavor before sewing it up.

  3. Sew the stomach bag closed.

  4. Place the sewn bag in a pan with boiling water to cover it, with a small plate underneath.

  5. Prick the bag with a needle to prevent bursting.

  6. Boil for four to five hours, keeping it covered with boiling water.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's stomach
Forms the bag that holds the filling while it cooks.
Oatmeal-cakes
Adds bulk and a starchy, absorbent body to the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Liver
Contributes savoury richness and a soft, grated texture to the filling.
Lights
Provides the lean, spongy texture typical of the traditional filling.

The step that matters

Pricking the bag before boiling. Air and steam expand inside the sealed stomach as it heats. Pricking it with a needle lets vapour escape, reducing the risk of the bag bursting during the long boil.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper. 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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