Skip to main content
Main

Scotch Haggis

A traditional Scottish dish made by cooking a mixture of sheep's pluck, oatmeal, suet, onions, and stock in a cleaned sheep stomach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper 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 ↓

Scotch Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly cleanse the sheep's stomach bag in hot water and salt.

  2. Boil the sheep's pluck and tongues for 1 hour, then chop finely.

  3. In a bowl, mix the chopped pluck, oatmeal, suet, parboiled onions, salt, and pepper thoroughly.

  4. Add 1 pint of the stock to the mixture and fill the stomach bag halfway.

Cook and serve

  1. Sew the bag closed with a needle and thread.

  2. Place the bag in a pot of boiling water, pricking it with a needle as it swells to allow air to escape.

  3. Boil for 3 hours, placing a plate beneath the bag to prevent sticking.

  4. Serve hot in a napkin on a plate without garnish or gravy.

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. Onion + peppertop 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

Oatmeal
Absorbs the stock and fat, giving the filling its crumbly, bound body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Sheep's pluck
Provides the main meaty flavour and texture of the filling.
Stock
Adds moisture so the oatmeal softens and the filling stays tender.
Spanish onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Pricking the bag as it swells. The filling expands and steam builds inside the bag as it boils. Without pricking to release air, the bag can burst, so the pricking matters.

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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes