SC - High Table

[LrdRas@aol.com]

Weiszbrod, Barbara A wrote:
> 
>         I, too have been considering making a Haggis, and have done some
> looking around on the net for more information.  I learned something that
> actually has be a bit relvieved.
> 
>         Acording to the Haggis Web page (funny that there is such a thing,
> huh?)  the FDA had decreed that sheep lung is not fit for human consumption.
> This is why haggis is not imported.  I would assume that would mean you also
> could not get the lung from a butcher, or from the processing house you
> might.
> 
>         The reason I find this comforting is that I can handle cooking the
> hart and the liver, but the idea  of lungs in a pot with the trachia hanging
> out the side is too much for this city girl.  Yucky.
> 
>         Alys D.

You can make quite a good "faux" haggis using lamb hearts and liver, which
will cut down on the livery flavor many Americans don't approve of anyway, and
substituting spleens in equal weight for the lungs. If you have a good
"ethnic" butcher, one whose name ends in a vowel ;  ), etc., he should either
have pork spleen or be able to order some for you. (Ask about milts or melt if
he looks blank when you ask for spleen, or there may be another local term.)
Spleen is vaguely similar to lungs in flavor, color, and, when ground up as
for haggis, texture (lungs are ordinarily relatively spongy, which can be
solved by parboiling them and cooling under a weighted plate or board, but for
haggis this is not a problem). Haggises made without lights tend to be paler
in color and more bland, more like liverwurst, but spleens will help give the
distinctive dark color and rich flavor a haggis should have, even if they're
not authentic sheep's lungs. Spleen, BTW, is a flat strip of dark red organ
meat, with a thin line of fat running along the center line.

By the way, I highly recommend using haggis recipes that _do_ call for suet
over ones that don't, and the other essential is that while the more exotic
spices seem to have been rare in the Scottish Highlands until the 19th century
or so, you can accomplish a lot for the flavor with judiciously applied salt
and pepper. I recommend seasoning your ground filling and tasting it (since
your meats will have already been cooked), bearing in mind that this is
supposed to be a sausage.

Oh, and never, ever, use rolled oats. The only thing they're good for is
oatmeal cookies, and that's debatablewhen you place them side by side with the
same cookie made with real oatmeal.

Adamantius
Østgardr, East 
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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