Haggis, Pretend

[outRIAAge]

Haggis, Pretend​

It's all very well to joke about haggis, but a good one is wonderful, and this one is very good. (Besides, it's usually served with plenty of whisky, which really helps it go down.) I'll get around to putting up my recipe for hardcore haggis, complete with very graphic photographs, but I'll confess that the last time I tried to make it, I got grossed-out and my hard-to-assemble ingredients went to waste.

This recipe is ten times easier, to both source and make. You can make it as a meatloaf, since that's what it is, but you could fool basically all Americans and most Scots by stuffing this into a beef casing (large intestine), which has the great advantages of being properly gross, with large veins running all over it, and is also legal and available in America. (To make real haggis, you need the help of a friendly butcher who will "gift" you the necessary lamb-innards, because some still give the FDA conniptions.)

1 lb / 500 g ground lamb
7 oz / 200 g lamb's liver cut into very small pieces (beef liver does fine as a substitute)
4 fl oz / 125 ml water
1 finely chopped small onion
1 large egg
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
6 oz / 175 g steelcut/pinhead oats
4 oz suet (much preferred) or lard
1 large beef casing (optional)

Using a food processor, chop half of the lamb, the liver, onion, suet, egg, salt, pepper, sugar, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and water until finely combined. Add all remaining ingredients, mixing thoroughly until everything is just mixed together well. You want a matrix of larger and smaller pieces.

Easy: Put the mixture into the greased loaf pan and flatten the top. Bake 45 - 55 minutes in a pre-heated oven (350°F / 180°C) The centre of the loaf should be firm when pressed. Leave in the tin for around 2 - 3 minutes to cool. Gently turn on to a serving plate and serve right away.

"Authentic": Beef casings come packed in salt. Thoroughly rinse inside and out, and tie off one end. Fill with the mixture, taking care to not stretch it more than about 6" wide, because it might burst when boiling. Tie off the other end, cover with water in a pot, and simmer for 90 min, then serve in the authentic way, which involves marching it around the dining table preceded by a bagpiper. How much stuffing is too much? A casing burst on me when I stuffed it to where it was more than 6" wide. Luckily, the haggis stayed in one piece, and I was serving to Americans, who didn't notice.

Serve with champit tatties and bashed neeps, of course.

 

[CraigC]

Haggis, Pretend​

It's all very well to joke about haggis, but a good one is wonderful, and this one is very good. (Besides, it's usually served with plenty of whisky, which really helps it go down.) I'll get around to putting up my recipe for hardcore haggis, complete with very graphic photographs, but I'll confess that the last time I tried to make it, I got grossed-out and my hard-to-assemble ingredients went to waste.

This recipe is ten times easier, to both source and make. You can make it as a meatloaf, since that's what it is, but you could fool basically all Americans and most Scots by stuffing this into a beef casing (large intestine), which has the great advantages of being properly gross, with large veins running all over it, and is also legal and available in America. (To make real haggis, you need the help of a friendly butcher who will "gift" you the necessary lamb-innards, because some still give the FDA conniptions.)

1 lb / 500 g ground lamb
7 oz / 200 g lamb's liver cut into very small pieces (beef liver does fine as a substitute)
4 fl oz / 125 ml water
1 finely chopped small onion
1 large egg
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
6 oz / 175 g steelcut/pinhead oats
4 oz suet (much preferred) or lard
1 large beef casing (optional)

Using a food processor, chop half of the lamb, the liver, onion, suet, egg, salt, pepper, sugar, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and water until finely combined. Add all remaining ingredients, mixing thoroughly until everything is just mixed together well. You want a matrix of larger and smaller pieces.

Easy: Put the mixture into the greased loaf pan and flatten the top. Bake 45 - 55 minutes in a pre-heated oven (350°F / 180°C) The centre of the loaf should be firm when pressed. Leave in the tin for around 2 - 3 minutes to cool. Gently turn on to a serving plate and serve right away.

"Authentic": Beef casings come packed in salt. Thoroughly rinse inside and out, and tie off one end. Fill with the mixture, taking care to not stretch it more than about 6" wide, because it might burst when boiling. Tie off the other end, cover with water in a pot, and simmer for 90 min, then serve in the authentic way, which involves marching it around the dining table preceded by a bagpiper. How much stuffing is too much? A casing burst on me when I stuffed it to where it was more than 6" wide. Luckily, the haggis stayed in one piece, and I was serving to Americans, who didn't notice.

Serve with champit tatties and bashed neeps, of course.

If I were to make something like this, I would use my meat grinder and sausage stuffer. We actually bought a boneless of lamb and ground it ourselves for moussaka and the shawarma done on our rotisserie. I would also mix it in the KA using the paddle adding a Tbsp or two of ice cold water. The water seems to help get all the ingredients more evenly mixed. I do have beef casings as well.

 

[outRIAAge]

If I were to make something like this, I would use my meat grinder and sausage stuffer.

Thanks for your input. I have a Waring meat-grinder that could almost stand in for the wood-chipper in "Fargo," but the largest die size they make is too small for my liking. I could have certainly used it to stuff the casing, with the die and cutting blade removed, but a tablespoon did the job just fine.

You already have the beef casing, which is by far the hardest ingredient to find, so give it a swing and see what you think. Some coarse creatures serve it flambeed with whisky, but that's just a waste of good whisky.

 

[erehweslefox]

Adore this recipe! I am gonna try it.

I am kind of fascinated with organ meats, tripe, and other such. I've always wanted to try genuine Haggis.

OutRIAAage, have you ever read Dariana Allen's cookbooks? She is an Irish chef, who does a lot with traditional recipes.

Anyway, I'll give this a try, I am in the 'borsch belt' in PA, lots of German and Dutch immigrants, bet I can find the casings easy!

Also I might be having a Freudian episode, but that picture of the dish is disturbingly phallic. Not sure whether that is a positive or negative, but pointing it out.

Best,

TBS

 

[outRIAAge]

OutRIAAage, have you ever read Dariana Allen's cookbooks? She is an Irish chef, who does a lot with traditional recipes.

Oh boy! You mean her Forgotten Skills of Cooking, which I had unbelievably never heard of. Suggestions like that are exactly why I joined this forum!

It takes us a little off-topic, but I grew up literally eating the Scottish countryside. The gold prize goes to wild strawberries, tiny flavour-bombs that I can spot on an embankment even from a speeding bus, but I can also spot real horse mushrooms from 200 yards away

We also knew when and where the shaggy ink-caps fruited. (If you're lucky enough to find them, use them within a few hours of picking, or put them in a bowl and let them quickly dissolve into the ink of their name, which is a dead ringer for squid ink, and just as tasty.)

My friends and I browsed on chamomile, ate the delicate internal stems of flowering grasses, and used sticks to bring down hundreds of crab-apples (not really edible, until transformed into crab apple jelly by our moms).

But as we lived on a mixed-purpose farm that had a market garden, our "foraging" included potatoes, turnips, kale, and the like, and our moms would send us out with a basket with orders to bring back rhubarb, cultivated strawberries, and other things that required us to run the gantlet of the terrifying market gardener with his shotgun. (He caught us literally red-handed once, stealing his rhubarb, but he utterly mystified us by putting down his shotgun and showing us how to pull rhubarb without damaging the plant.)

Our moms would also ask for cultivated apples, with no acknowledgement that this required breaking into distant orchards that were guarded by trip-wires connected to shotguns and much worse, so of course we approached that like the D-Day landings. Fun times.

Any other fun foraging stories out there? Or is there a separate thread for that? That would make more sense.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

...and our moms would send us out with a basket with orders to bring back rhubarb, cultivated strawberries, and other things that required us to run the gantlet of the terrifying market gardener with his shotgun. (He caught us literally red-handed once, stealing his rhubarb, but he utterly mystified us by putting down his shotgun and showing us how to pull rhubarb without damaging the plant.)...

Any other fun foraging stories out there? Or is there a separate thread for that? That would make more sense.

My Dad wasn't as lucky as you were with running the gauntlet. He didn't come home with apples - he came home with a few pieces of rock salt in his bottom.

Since you're the OP of this thread, feel free to wander it wherever you want. However, it might be easier to discuss the foraging topic if it had a dedicated thread. The bonus? Not having to see the image of that Haggis every time I scroll through!

 

[outRIAAge]

My Dad wasn't as lucky as you were with running the gauntlet. He didn't come home with apples - he came home with a few pieces of rock salt in his bottom.

Since you're the OP of this thread, feel free to wander it wherever you want. However, it might be easier to discuss the foraging topic if it had a dedicated thread. The bonus? Not having to see the image of that Haggis every time I scroll through!

Fun stories, aren't they? I'll never forget the time Gavin got his underwear caught in an apple tree-branch and dangled there with the most extreme weggie ever while we couldn't help for laughing. I've been shot at by a bellowing farmer, but I strongly suspect he was using blanks: those were kinder times.

I haven't been here long enough to know how to reposition this part of the thread, but I'll shortly figure out where to put it, especially if there isn't an entire "foraging" category.

 

[Souschef]

Haggis

Here is the captain of the Hebridean Princess reciting the Robert Burns poem"To a Haggis" and cutting into it.

 

[outRIAAge]

Missing instruction!

Dammitalltohell! I forgot an utterly crucial instruction: take a pin and prick it all over about twenty times before boiling. Otherwise a messy time is guaranteed for all.

 

[medtran49]

Thanks for your input. I have a Waring meat-grinder that could almost stand in for the wood-chipper in "Fargo," but the largest die size they make is too small for my liking. I could have certainly used it to stuff the casing, with the die and cutting blade removed, but a tablespoon did the job just fine.

You already have the beef casing, which is by far the hardest ingredient to find, so give it a swing and see what you think. Some coarse creatures serve it flambeed with whisky, but that's just a waste of good whisky.

Check for aftermarket parts. When we were still using the KA to grind meat before we bought the LEM, Craig started complaining about the die sizes and the blades once he really started reading up on the finer points of sausage making and getting more practice. I found differently shaped blades and different die sizes on Amazon for the KA and they did make a big difference, though they didn't get many uses before be bought the LEM grinder.

Um no unless Craig wants to eat it all himself. Just doesn't appeal to me and reminds me too much of something else. Won't go into details but it involves the pugs and eating things they shouldn't.

 

[erehweslefox]

Oh boy! You mean her Forgotten Skills of Cooking, which I had unbelievably never heard of. Suggestions like that are exactly why I joined this forum!

The good lady also has a chapter on the Mushabooms. I do some foraging myself, finally have convinced Dear Wife that mushrooms from the forest if gathered correctly can be eaten.

Forgotten Skills is my main Go To Cookbook, I am quite delighted about introducing it to someone who might enjoy it as much as we have and do, nearly on a daily basis. I can't emphasize enough how good a cookbook it has been for me.

We are about to go to camp for a week, in Chincoteague Virginia. (to watch the pony swim), I just bookmarked Allen's Crab recipes. This cookbook often goes with us in the car when we are car camping, that is how good it is.

I haven't looked (just responding to posts first) but have we started a foraging thread? If so I'll surely chime in. If not I'll start one!

Hey if you get a copy of Forgotten Skills, you want to work on some of the more challenging recipes (like the ones involving organ meats and tripe in homage to the original point of this thread), and trade notes? My other foodie type friends are restaurant types not home chefs, and are kind of resistant to the majesty and awesomeness that is Darina Allen.

With your Scottish roots; (my Mom, by the way is a Danskin, lowland branch, not highland), and my Dad's family is Welsh by way of early immigration to Vermont, so lets say Allen speaks fairly directly to my culinary tradition, you will love Forgotten Skills.

Cheers!
TBS

 

[tenspeed]

A

I think that photograph explains why I've never seen a restaurant featuring Scottish food.

 

[outRIAAge]

I think that photograph explains why I've never seen a restaurant featuring Scottish food.

Ach, dinnae talk daft!

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?
​

 

[erehweslefox]

You are throwing Burns at us, sirrah?

Worse than Haggis. And you are talking to a man with a ten gallon pail of Barley in his storage locker, (amusing story, will relate it later)

 

[Cooking Goddess]

That's kishka! As a young child, I used to eat kishka when my Mom used that name for it. I actually thought it was pretty OK. Then she called it by its English name - blood sausage - and it was "game over". Instead of lamb parts, though, it was pig.

Same thing happened with one of my childhood soups. Pronounced "chahd-nee-na", I loved czarnina. My great aunt lived with us at the time and did a lot of cooking. She would tell me that the soup was "chocolate soup" and was made from the solid chocolates in the candy box. I would dutifully save those chocolates and give them to Nana so that she could make the soup. One day my best friend's older sister's fiance (his family owned a butcher shop) dropped off a duck and a quart of something dark red. I asked my Mom what that was for. "Czarnina" she said. Wha??????? Then she dropped the boom: "duck's blood soup". Nana never got my solid chocolates again...

 

[outRIAAge]

...Then she called it by its English name - blood sausage - and it was "game over". Instead of lamb parts, though, it was pig ... One day my best friend's older sister's fiance (his family owned a butcher shop) dropped off a duck and a quart of something dark red. I asked my Mom what that was for. "Czarnina" she said. Wha??????? Then she dropped the boom: "duck's blood soup".

Ha, we have a common heritage! In Britain, real blood sausage is called "black pudding" so I grew up loving it with no idea what I was eating.

Same with tripe. I literally grew up on oatmeal porridge, and every couple of weeks Mom would make a delightful "meat porridge." Then one day I came home from school and there was a slab of something white and gelatinous on the counter that she hadn't yet put through the grinder. So started a battle, with Mom saying: "It's your favourite" and me grimly shaking my head. I went to bed hungry.

Next morning, Mom surprised us with bacon 'n eggs for breakfast ... for everyone but me, who got to look at a bowl of cold tripe porridge until it was time for school. At dinnertime, she'd made glorious mince 'n tatties, except I got my cold bowl of tripe ... and then she broke. She took it away and gave me mince 'n tatties. I remember it as my first-ever victory.

I never thought about tripe for 50 years, but I recently, innocently, had a bowl of menudo, which was fantastic. I may soon screw my courage to the sticking place and buy some raw tripe.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

Ha, we have a common heritage!...

You a Brit, me from Polish stock...and we have a common heritage. Yes, it's true. Nationalities aren't that far apart in their foods, just the names we call them. And no matter what language you use, some of them just don't seem all that appealing once you know what they are made of.

Now if we're all so similar, WHY can't we all get along??????? But I digress...

"Life is very short, and there's no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend"

 

[outRIAAge]

I haven't looked (just responding to posts first) but have we started a foraging thread? If so I'll surely chime in. If not I'll start one!

I wasn't able to find one, so by all means start one. Fiddlehead ferns, fresh grape leaves, anyone?

Hey if you get a copy of Forgotten Skills, you want to work on some of the more challenging recipes (like the ones involving organ meats and tripe in homage to the original point of this thread), and trade notes? My other foodie type friends are restaurant types not home chefs, and are kind of resistant to the majesty and awesomeness that is Darina Allen.

Yabetcha! The book will shortly be in my hands. Restaurant chefs have lots of good skills, but don't have the freedom we do, so lets enjoy it.

With your Scottish roots; (my Mom, by the way is a Danskin, lowland branch, not highland), and my Dad's family is Welsh by way of early immigration to Vermont, so lets say Allen speaks fairly directly to my culinary tradition, you will love Forgotten Skills.

I'm just amazed I've never heard of her before now. Mom used to tell us that her grandmother was The McLeod of McLeod (the clan chief), but she was not a reliable witness, and we were purely Lowland Scots. Dad, however, was indeed Welsh, and my surname - Foster - started as the Dutch Vorster (face it: all of us are mongrels). So by all means start a foraging thread, and I'll eventually figure how to move these conversations over there.