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Dundee Haggis

A Scottish haggis made with oatmeal, meat, broth, bread crumbs, butter, eggs, and seasonings, cooked in a double boiler and then boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dundee Haggis

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Stir the skimmed and strained gravy into the soaked oatmeal, season with salt and pepper.

  2. Cook in a double boiler for 1 hour before adding the milk soaked with bread crumbs.

  3. Cook for another 30 minutes, stirring often.

  4. Transfer to a bowl to cool completely.

Mould and cook

  1. Beat in the melted butter, chopped meat, and beaten eggs until well mixed.

  2. Pour into a buttered mold.

  3. Boil or steam for 1.5 hours.

  4. Turn out.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Forms the bulk and thickens the mixture as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, cooking into a creamy body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, holding the haggis together.
Cold veal, mutton, or poultry
Provides the meat and savoury flavour throughout the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Soak up milk to add body and help the mixture hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the texture and adding flavour.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler. Gentle, indirect heat keeps the oatmeal and milk from scorching or sticking to the pan while they thicken slowly. Stirring often evens out the heat and keeps the mixture smooth.

“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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