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Haggis

A traditional Scottish dish made from lamb's paunch, suet, oatmeal, onions, and minced pluck, boiled in a cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paunch

  1. Clean the paunch by soaking it in salt and water.

  2. Tie up any holes with string.

  3. Wash, scald, and dry the paunch thoroughly.

Make the filling

  1. Blanch the onions.

  2. Finely chop the onions.

  3. Finely chop the suet.

  4. Boil the pluck for 2 hours.

  5. Drain the boiled pluck.

  6. Dry the drained pluck.

  7. Mince the dried pluck finely.

  8. Mix the minced pluck with the other ingredients.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the paunch three-quarters full with the mixture.

  2. Tie up the filled paunch.

  3. Fasten it in a cloth.

  4. Boil gently for 3 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Scotch oatmeal
Forms the bulk of the filling, absorbing liquid and fat as it cooks to a firm, crumbly texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich during long gentle boiling.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury flavour that pervades the filling.
Milk or liquor from the pluck
Supplies moisture that the oatmeal absorbs, helping bind and soften the mixture.
Lamb's paunch
Acts as the casing that encloses the filling and holds it together while it boils.

The step that matters

Fill the paunch three-quarters full. Oatmeal and the other dry ingredients swell as they absorb liquid and fat during cooking. Leaving room prevents the paunch from bursting and lets the filling cook evenly.

Swap the allspice

The recipe marks allspice as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, onion, milk, pepper, mace, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Rosemaryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, onion, milk, pepper, mace, parsley, thyme. 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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