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Sheep’s Haggis

A traditional Scottish dish made by boiling sheep pluck, suet, oatmeal, and onions in sheep stomachs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 stomach bags

  1. Wash the stomach bags in cold water.

  2. Plunge the stomach bags into boiling water.

  3. Scrape the stomach bags carefully.

  4. Soak the bags overnight in cold water with a little salt.

Cook the pluck

  1. Wash the pluck.

  2. Place the pluck in a pan of boiling water, letting the windpipe hang over the side to allow impurities to escape.

  3. Boil the pluck for 1.5 hours.

  4. Remove the pluck from the water and let it cool.

  5. Cut away the windpipe and any attached fat or gristle from the pluck.

Make the filling

  1. Grate a quarter of the liver.

  2. Mince the heart, lights, and suet.

  3. Parboil the onions.

  4. Chop the onions.

  5. Dry or toast the oatmeal.

  6. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

  7. Add black pepper, salt, and ½ cup of the boiling liquor to the mixture.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the stomach bags slightly more than half full with the mixture.

  2. Sew the stomach bags up.

  3. Place the sewn bags in boiling water.

  4. Boil for 3 hours, pricking the bags occasionally to allow air to escape.

  5. Serve the haggis in a folded napkin on a hot dish 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. 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Absorbs the cooking liquor and gives the filling its crumbly, binding body.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Sheep's pluck
Forms the meaty base of the filling, supplying most of the savoury flavour.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that balance the richness of the meat and fat.

The step that matters

Filling the stomach bags slightly more than half full. Oatmeal and meat swell as they absorb liquid and cook. Leaving room in the bag prevents it from bursting, and pricking it lets trapped air escape.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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