[Sca-cooks] Haggis: [Fwd: News of the Weird]

[Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy]

Elizabeth A Heckert wrote:

>     Steel cut oats makes sense!  It's the only way you can get me within
> ten feet of oatmeal.  Also, as I said, the stuff I had tasted like
> wallpaper paste.  The funny thing is, I don't even remember the colour of
> it, it must have looked fairly innocuous!

Ecchhh. Actually, it's possible to use rolled oats in haggis, but the
proportions need to be a little different. A proper haggis should be
sort of hashy in consistency, sort of like a moist pilaf. One of the
main secrets of attaining this consistency is to use a recipe that calls
for added fat, rather than one which omits things like a small amount of
grated suet. People do weird things like substituting a lot of liquid
for the fat, creating a sloppy goo, or nothing in place of it, creating
dry modelling clay. But 99% of all substandard haggis I've seen has been
because the cook simply forgot that HAGGIS IS A *&$%^#@*&%# SAUSAGE.
There is no such thing as an effective haggis without salt or a viable
substitute. Ditto pepper, at the very least. Pennyroyal, or, for the
squeamish, mint, are helpful additions, as is a pinch of nutmeg,
although this is a little New Wave by haggis standards. Thyme is a good
addition in lieu of the mints.

So, we're talking about a sausage filled with dark-brown meats, mixed
with onion, [usually] brown toasted oats, fat and herbs. Brown ales of
various kinds occasionally go in to moisten the filling. The filling,
when mixed and cooked, tends to look like darkish buckwheat kasha. How
could it be gray?

I submit the possibility that while there may be, or have been, some
small percentage of gray haggis(es), they are probably not the norm, and
I suspect that a lot of people who discuss the grayness of haggis have
never actually tried it or even seen it.

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98