The Haggis – a Modern Recipe

The Haggis is a very old, traditional Scottish dish that combines meats, spices and oatmeal.  A traditional recipe for The Haggis would involve the boiled and minced liver, lungs and heart of a sheep mixed with chopped onions, toasted oatmeal, salt, pepper, and spices.  The mixture would then be stuffed into the cleaned sheep’s stomach, sewn up (leaving enough room for expansion to avoid an explosion) and then boiled.

Don’t go…wait come back!  We have an updated version of The Haggis for you prepared with modern techniques that just may tickle your culinary fancy.  And rather than using a sheep’s stomach you can prepare the Haggis in a bowl or use the same type of casing most commonly used to make breakfast sausage.  Ask your butcher if they will sell you sausage casing.

Go ahead be adventurous – you just might like it!

Ingredients

½ lb minced lamb shoulder
½ lb minced beef
6 oz. beef suet
½ lb beef liver
1 cup of oatmeal
1 cup of stock (reserve this from the boiled meat)
2 finely chopped onions (or you can grate the onions if you choose)
½ tsp grated nutmeg
1 piece of mace or ¼ tsp ground mace
¼ tsp of cayenne pepper
¼ tsp ground coriander
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

Method

1. Preheat oven to 250 °-300°F
2. Place the liver in cold water, bring to a boil the liver for five minutes, allow to cool
3. Chop the liver with the onion as finely as you can
4. Boil the remaining meat in a large stock pot approximately one hour; then allow to cool.
5. Reserve the stock
6. Meanwhile, toast the oatmeal in a sauté pan shaking occasionally to be sure all toasts equally and doesn’t burn
7. Chop the meats finely
8. Mix all ingredients together including the reserved stock
9. Transfer to a well greased oven-proof glass bowl and cover with a layer of foil or parchment paper.
10. Place in a baie marie (a water bath) using a pan large enough to accommodate the bowl and add warm water to come ¾ of the way up the bowl. Check from time to time to replenish the water level.
11. Cook for 3 hours.
12. To serve, cut open the casing if you are using and spoon out the filling
13. Accompany with neeps and tatties.(turnips and potatoes mashed together)

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One Response

1. Robbie Burns Day – More than Just The Haggis says:

   January 21, 2010 at 11:50 PM

   [...] “We look to Scotland,” Voltaire said “for all our ideas of civilisation.”  And on January 25, Scots around the world, both real and honourary, become extra, um, civilized as they mark the grand tradition of Robbie Burns Day with all of its customs, including The Haggis. [...]