Homemade Haggis

As a Scotsman living abroad, one of the things i miss most is haggis.

“you mean sheep guts in a stomach?”

Yes, Yes i do!

So browsing on the internet i discovered an “American” recipe for haggis for people who don’t have access to sheep’s insides. So i thought i’d give it a go.

The Ingredients

I went to my local supermarket and picked up some stuff as close as to the recipe as i could. I think i did pretty well..

I couldn’t get a stomach, so i bought Chinchulines otherwise known as intestines. some people eat this… I have before its not horrible but its not great either. I think it will be perfect to encase the haggis.

Azotillo is a cheap cut of meat….. loads of fat on it.

Higado is Liver….. Loads of blood and not very tasty looking.

Some nice steak with bone marrow.

And some lard….

Preparing the intestines.

The site said to Wash and place the intestines in warm water for an hour.

My cat loved the smell….. me not so much! It smelt quite disgusting.

More Preparation

Haggis usually has oatmeal in it…. I’ve not been able to find that but i did find a recipe that mentioned using toasted oats…. so hey although i’m not quite sticking to the recipe, i’ve already got no lamb in my haggis, toasted oats wont make much of a difference.

Plain and simple job of sticking the oats into an oven dish and toasting them.

Haggis also contains onion (and a few recipes mentioned garlic) so i cooked them in some butter.

Mixing the meat…..

Mow came the time to mix the Lard, Meat and Herbs together!

Don’t worry I didn’t forget about the cat!

She got the leftover meat around the bone.

The Herbs

Now came the time to add those lovely herbs to make my haggis more haggis like!

One recipe called for Jamaican All Spice. Now this is impossible to come across here but a quick google says “Allspice, also called Jamaica pepper, kurundu, myrtle pepper, pimenta. The name “allspice” was coined as early as 1621 by the English, who thought it combined the flavour of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.” Great! i can add cinnamon, nutmeg cloves and pepper.

I don’t have a photo of myself grating the nutmeg or adding the cloves so you’ll have to just trust me that i added it. It also said to add mustard powder which i don’t have….. i do have mustard seeds and mustard though!

Close enough!

Looks tasty no?

Next i was to mix all the herbs, raw meat and oats in a freezer bag and stick it in the freezer until it was “not frozen but solid”.
Not having any freezer bags i did the next best thing.

I placed it in a polybag from the local supermarket, shook it and shoved it in the freezer.

Grinding the meat

The recipe called for me to grind the mixture with a meat grinder and place it into a food mixer. Not having a grinder i also read that some people cut the meat up finely and place it in a food mixer so here goes!

Its not looking the best is it. Still I’m not deterred although the recipes I’ve seen have no pictures through the process i do remember seeing a documentary about the Grants haggis company (who make great Haggis
by the way go buy some) and their mixture didn’t look like mine…. but it didn’t look great either.

So once all the meat has been added the next thing is to add some whisky (the recipe i was following said beer but it was one out of 100s so i went with whisky).

Not too hard to find… I added a bit of both as i thought that the highland cream wouldn’t be smokey enough, and i didn’t want to use all the black bottle.

So the result?

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM tasty!

Making the haggis

Now haggis isn’t haggis unless its placed in a sheeps stomach (or in this case placed in a cows intestine!)
You need to sew up one end of the intestine, i chose some nylon fishing line to do mine.

So lets stuff the haggis

4 lovely completed haggis!

I think it might be good too! The cat seems to like the leftovers….

So the only thing left to do its to cook it!

Click here to see the finished product

Tags: browning onions, cat haggis, cook raw haggis, cooking haggis, haggis, haggis review, home made haggis, homemade, homemade haggis, how long to cook raw haggis, how to make haggis, how to make nylon intestines, raw haggis, simple, teachers highland cream, toasting oats