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Scotch Haggis

A traditional Scottish dish made from sheep's pluck, suet, oatmeal, and spices, encased in a stomach bag and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scotch Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the stomach bag in cold water.

  2. Plunge the stomach bag into boiling water.

  3. Scrape the stomach bag well without breaking it.

  4. Soak the bag in a basin of cold water with 1 tablespoon of salt overnight.

  5. Wash the pluck.

  6. Boil the pluck in cold water for 1 hour.

  7. Let the pluck cool completely.

  8. Grate ¼ of the liver.

  9. Chop the lights and heart finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, mix the chopped ingredients with Jamaica pepper, salt, and black pepper.

  2. Finely chop the suet.

  3. Add the chopped suet to the mixture.

  4. Dry the oatmeal in the oven for 10 minutes.

  5. Add the oatmeal to the mixture.

  6. Add half of the water used to boil the pluck to the mixture.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the bag a little more than half full.

  2. Sew the bag up with stout thread.

  3. Place the haggis in a large pan of boiling water.

  4. Prick the skin occasionally to let steam escape.

  5. Boil 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Sheep's pluck
Forms the main meaty body of the haggis, giving the filling its savoury bulk and flavour.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Oatmeal
Absorbs the cooking liquid and swells, binding the filling into a firm, crumbly texture.

The step that matters

Fill the bag only a little more than half full. The oatmeal swells and the filling releases steam as it cooks. Overfilling leaves no room for expansion, so the bag can burst, and pricking the skin lets steam escape safely.

“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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