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A Haggess

A traditional Scottish dish made from finely chopped heart and livers, suet, soaked bread, spices, raisins, and chitterlings, boiled in a sheep's bag.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 11,917 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch and finely chop the heart and livers of a calf or sheep.

  2. Shred the beef suet finely.

  3. Soak the crumb of a French roll in cream.

Make and cook the haggis

  1. Mix the soaked roll with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, sweet wine, raisins, flour, salt, egg yolks, and chitterlings.

  2. Put the mixture into a cleaned sheep's bag and tie it tight.

  3. Boil the bag for three 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,027 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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 melts during cooking, keeping the filling moist and rich.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and set when cooked, holding it together.
French roll crumb
Soaked in cream, it adds moisture and a soft texture to the filling.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and helps it hold its shape when boiled.

The step that matters

Tying the bag tight. If the bag is not sealed well, water enters during boiling and the filling can become soggy or leak out. Leave a little room for the filling to expand as it cooks.

Flavor stand-ins for the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Orangeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Appleabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cream, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, wine, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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