[Sca-cooks] and Haggis Redux

[Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy]

Elizabeth A Heckert wrote:

>   So, kind Sir, would it be possible to have you give the list a recipe
> for haggis??
>
>    Elizabeth


I have it scrawled somewhere, and will try to retrieve it. As I recall
it is a synthesis of Elizabeth Luard's, from _The Old World Kitchen_,
with something from one of the Jeff Smith books (Smith's is good and
addresses the difficulty of obtaining sheep's lungs commercially in the
U.S.A., using beef innards instead, but commits the dangerous offense of
leaving out the fat. Naughty restaurateur!).

As I recall, and until I can find it again, it consisted roughly of (by
weight):

[NOTE: no claims are being made as to the periodicity of this dish)
20% beef hearts
20% lamb liver
15% pork spleens (a.k.a. milts, Italian and Chinese butchers sell these,
and they add the color and richness of lungs without the health and
legal issues)
15% chopped onion
20% oats (steel-cut porridge oats toasted in the oven until golden brown)
10% grated beef suet

Basically, you simmer the meats until the toughest of them, the hearts,
are tender (maybe two hours), then grind everything but the oats
together. Mix thoroughly with the oats, season aggressively as for
sausage with salt and pepper, using perhaps 1 teaspoon of salt per pound
of the total mixture, and maybe 1/2 teaspoon fresh black pepper per
pound. These are reasonable seasoning quantities for a sausage; you
could even use more and get away with it, but much more would be too
much, IMO. Add some herbs if you wish; we used about 1 to 1 1/2
teaspoons per pound each of dried thyme and fresh chopped mint. Moisten
it all with either enough of the broth from the meats to give it a
cohesive, stuffing-like texture, or use stout (English is better for
this than Irish, I think), maybe a shot of a good brown single-malt
whisky if you're feeling expansive. A mix of all of the above liquids
would work.

Pack into casings. I'm sure we've all heard about those nasty sheep
stomachs; when we made twenty or so of these for an event, we ran up
some thirty feet  of muslin tubing some four inches in diameter, cut
them into eighteen-inch lengths, and tied off each end with string.
Don't fill them too full, as the oats will expand, but a firm texture
will help combat any potential for claims of sogginess. They'll need to
simmer for perhaps 2 1/2 hours to cook, maybe an hour to reheat. Each
haggis ended up being about three pounds after cooking, for us, so each
easily served eight as part of a larger meal.

I have seen small children and meat-and-potatoes knights fight over the
last crumbs of these.

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