Burns Night

[ladylottie]

I've never tried haggis - I somehow think it must be like faggots (a traditional dish of my home territory - the Black Country). As I don't like faggots that's put me off trying haggis. So, all you Scots - it is the same? Or am I missing something?

[Madasafish]

I've never tried haggis - I somehow think it must be like faggots (a traditional dish of my home territory - the Black Country). As I don't like faggots that's put me off trying haggis. So, all you Scots - it is the same? Or am I missing something?

Not really similar.

Faggots = meat plus other bits n pieces.in a lump with gravy . Loose .

Haggis: contained in a skin. Mainly oatmeal and when cooked falls apart into a loose mound rafter you cut open the skin.

Taste:
Faggots: gravy and spice...
haggis: dry with a slightly spicy taste but totally different.. As it's a dryish loose grained meal the taste tends not to linger in the mouth but the meal sits in your stomach like any grain based meal.

Above all haggis form a wonderful absorbent base for drinking.

When you realise that when Burns lived, whisky was not the blended stuff sold today which has been matured in a cask for years... but for most ordinary people it would be home distilled hooch as raw as a block of ice and with the bite of a white shark. The kind of stuff to rip your guts out.

Hence the need for haggis to line your stomach.

I am an exiled Scot. I love haggis despite drinking Scotch when a teenager - often illicit !!) ... - I think it is horrible now. gin & tonic.

We eat haggis roughly once a month: removed form skin, cut into slabs, placed round bottom of casserole dish, cut onion in between sections, a little water (1 cm in bottom) added , top on casserole and roasted in oven at gas Mark 5 for 60-75 mins.


Lovely.

If you went for a swim after, you would sink to the bottom and drown:-)

Mashed potato, mashed turnip and baked beans...

[Hazel at the Hill]

You've nearly persuaded me to give it a go - except I do still know what the ingredients are, which is a bit offputting.

I read today that you can't get haggis in America as their Food Agency (equivalent) doesn't licence sheeps lungs & such as foodstuffs.

[Madasafish]

Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and simmered for approximately three hours. Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a sausage casing rather than an actual stomach.

As the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique puts it, "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour".[1]


Haggis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[mothhawk]

Must pop into Sainsbugs and A*** to see if they have any half price vegetarian haggis left over. The last one I had, a couple of years ago, made a wonderfully spicy nut roast!

[veggiechicken]

Here's a veggie haggis recipe that I may try one day!! Vegetarian Haggis Recipe » Carl Legge

[mothhawk]

Interesting recipe, I guess I could sub lentils for aduki beans (hate cooked beans - love 'em sprouted!), but I make that almost 2 hrs cooking time plus overnight soaking.....cba frankly. S'bugs here I come!

[ladylottie]

Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and simmered for approximately three hours. Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a sausage casing rather than an actual stomach.

Yes, this is a bit similar to how we used to make faggots at home, (heart, liver & lights - what you are calling sheep's pluck) mixed with minced onion and breadcrumbs and stock. We covered them with "caul" (sp?) which I assume was the membrane from round the sheep's stomach. My job as a child was to cut up all the "pluck" with scissors to help make the faggots.

Mmm, so not sure about trying haggis after all, but you do make it sound nice, Madas!

[Ananke]

I love the sound of the veggie version, might give that a go myself.

Every year we say we are going to cut down on meat and have a few veggie meals per week but other than a veggie lasagna and veggie mousaka now and then, it never seems to happen.

I need to read up and try a few recipes like that one.

[Madasafish]

The US program about eateries on last nite (channel?) " somethinorother and Dives" had a programme about a US eaterie with Home made haggis (- lungs - forbidden) - and making them... Cooked in batter as if fried fish.

Looked loverly . US eaters liked it