Haggis recipe

By Kay McMahon, 24 October 2000

From: Meg Dod’s prize recipe

Ingredients

• Sheep’s pluck and paunch
• Beef suet
• Onions
• Oatmeal
• Pepper
• Salt
• Cayenne
• Lemon or vinegar

Method

Clean a sheep’s pluck thoroughly. Make incisions in the heart and liver to allow the blood to flow out, and parboil the whole, letting the windpipe lie over the side of the pot to discharge impurities. A half-hour’s boiling should be sufficient, but throw back half of the liver till it will grate easily.

Take the heart, the half of the liver, the lights, trimming away all skins and black-looking parts, and mince them together. Mince also a pound of good beef suet and four or more onions. Grate the other half of the liver. Have a dozen small onions peeled and scalded in two waters to mix with this mince.

Have ready some finely ground oatmeal, toasted slowly before the fire for hours, till it is of a light brown colour and perfectly dry. Less than two teacupfuls of meal will do for this quantity of meat. Spread the mince on a board and strew the meal lightly over it with a high seasoning of pepper, salt and a little cayenne.

Have a haggis bag (ie a sheep’s paunch) perfectly clean, and see that there be no thin part to it, else your whole labour will be lost due to its bursting. Put in the meat with a half-pint good beef gravy. Be careful not to fill the bag too full but allow it to swell, add the juice of a lemon or a little good vinegar, press out the air and sew up the bag. Prick it with a large needle when it first swells, let it boil slowly for three hours if large.

[On the other hand you could just buy one. Veggie versions are available these days, and I admit that I prefer them! Sorry to all my haggis-eating fellow-countrymen.]

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