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A Haggis

A traditional Scottish dish made by stuffing a sheep's stomach with minced pluck, suet, oatmeal, onion, and seasonings, then boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,420 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

A Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the sheep's stomach and soak it in cold water overnight.

  2. Boil the sheep's pluck until very tender, then mince it finely.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the minced pluck with suet, white pepper, salt, onion, and toasted oatmeal.

  2. Add 4 cups of the liquid from boiling the pluck to the mixture and combine well.

Cook and serve

  1. Stuff the mixture into the sheep's stomach and sew it securely to prevent water from entering.

  2. Boil the stuffed stomach for 3 hours and serve in a deep dish.

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Liver + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. White pepper + oniontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's pluck
Provides the main meaty body of the filling, which is tenderised by long boiling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Toasted oatmeal
Absorbs liquid and gives the filling a firm, crumbly texture.
Liquid from boiling the pluck
Moistens the mixture and carries flavour through the filling.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Sew the stomach securely. If the seal leaks, water enters the stuffing during the long boil, diluting the filling and making it soggy rather than set and sliceable.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, onion. 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.

More haggis recipes

Scotch 53Scottish 5Dundee 3Sheep's 3 See all 31 →

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