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Sheep’s Haggis

A Scottish dish of minced sheep's heart, lights, liver, suet, oatmeal and onions, seasoned and boiled in a sheep's stomach bag.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sheep’s Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bag

  1. Wash the stomach bag in cold water.

  2. Place the stomach bag in hot water and scrape it.

  3. Soak the stomach bag in cold water with a little salt overnight.

Boil the pluck

  1. Wash the pluck well.

  2. Cover the pluck with cold water in a pan.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and boil for 2 hours.

  4. Remove the pluck and let it cool.

  5. Cut away the windpipe.

Make the filling

  1. Grate a quarter of the liver.

  2. Mince the heart, lights, suet, and boiled onions.

  3. Mix with the toasted oatmeal, pepper, salt, and ½ pint of the boiling liquor.

  4. Fill the stomach bag a little more than half full with the mixture.

  5. Sew up the stomach bag.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the bag in boiling water.

  2. Prick the bag occasionally to prevent bursting.

  3. Boil for 3 hours and serve on a hot plate.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Liver + beeftop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 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

Oatmeal
Absorbs liquid and gives the filling its crumbly, bound body.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Heart and lights
Form the main minced body of the filling, giving it its meaty texture.
Liver
Adds depth and richness to the filling when grated into the mixture.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the minced filling.

The step that matters

Prick the bag occasionally. Steam expands inside the sealed bag as it boils, so pricking releases pressure and prevents the casing from bursting.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, beef, 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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