Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.
Etc. …"
I won't go on for all eight verses as you'll need to have poured an awful lot of Scotch down your throat to enjoy that.
Suffice to say we missed Burns Night this year, what with one thing and another, so Phil invited me over on Sunday to enjoy a belated Burns afternoon (and a splendid victory for England over Italy in the Six Nations Rugby).
I only really enjoy one of Burns' poems: To A Mouse: the one that starts "Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie" and includes the line so brilliantly deconstructed by Eddie Izzard: "The best laid plans o' mice an' men, gang aft agley."
So instead of an incomprehensible Scottish poet we shall dedicate this post to Mr. Burns and Waylon Smithers.
Excellent!
What do we have here?
Yes, you guessed it: it's a sheep's stomach stuffed with the heart, liver and lungs of a cute little lamb, all minced up with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and stock.
The Scots of late appear to have abandoned their glorious culinary heritage of copious quantities of offal, mountains of root vegetables and fantastic whisky in favour of salt, industrial fats and oils, sugar and more salt; their current diet consisting of deep-fried pizza, deep-fried Mars bars and puke-inducing fizzy lager.
Shame on them! They are certifiable idiots for neglecting something so sublime as the haggis.
So let us wrap the beast in foil and put in the the oven in a tray half filled with water for about an hour and a half (up to three hours for a big one).
While that's cooking, come hither and admire the other ingredients for today's feast: viz. some root vegetables.
Tradition has it that haggis must be served with "Neeps and Tatties" but Phil is a damned good cook and we are filthy heathen Sassenachs so we shall be adding a couple of extras today.
Neeps, by the way, is not an abbreviation of turnips, but for some linguistically perverse reason is the Scottish term for Swede (that's rutabaga for any Colonials from across the water).
Lacking the traditional - and somewhat cumbersome and impractical in the kitchen - ceremonial sword, he pierces the beastie with his Sabatier knife and the fragrant innards gush forth as the thing tries to turn itself inside-out.
To quell the raging beastie he anoints it with good malt whisky, as is only right and proper.
And here it is.
Lashings of good, hearty spiced offal, sweetbreads, diverse innards and oatmeal. Haggis is a true taste sensation and this one was awesome!
Add to that, the traditional neeps and tatties and perfectly al-dente herby carrots, enriched with that glorious gravy and you have a fantastic winter feast.
Many thanks to Phil for cooking up a storm.
22 comments:
Now that's a dish that will stick to your ribs. I'd love to give that a try. Makes me want to go find a caber and give it a toss.
Ah, there's nothing like a nice bit of caber tossing, Mark.
Get yourself a haggis and give the wee beastie a try. It really is delicious.
You know I do not like the haggis, but the rest looks great..
Hope that cooking is some skill that I have passed onto you two!You are always complaining you only inherit the not so nice things ha ha...
Of COURSE you like haggis! You just don't know it yet. Hee hee.
It looks like it was cooked to perfection, but I'm not a fan of organ meats, especially liver, so I think I'll pass on the haggis. I would try the veggies and potatoes, tho. :)
It doesn't sound good, but it looks good.
Ms.M: there is a company over here called MacSween that makes (brace yourself) "vegetarian haggis".
I tried one back when I was veggie and it wasn't as good as the real thing but it was still pretty yummy.
Petrea, it tastes even better!
That looks good to eat. The US has this new culinary trend: nose to tail cooking. When I was growing up in the old country we just called that "cooking," period. I like 'em innards; they're tasty!
They sure are, Vanda. What's the point in killing an animal if you're only going to eat the pretty bits. Yay for trotters, tripe, udder, jot, tail, cheek and innards! Deeelicious!
OK, I was going along with this until the part where the haggis comes alive and tries to "turn itself inside out." What an inedible image that produces! I suppose if I didn't know about that part, I'd eat the stuff, though.
I would try vegetarian haggis. Bouncing off of Vanda's comment on "nose to tail" cooking, I was raised on a farm where we did that. The menu included beef heart, tongue, pigs feet, back bones, liver, chicken gizzards -- and, of course, Rocky Mountain Oysters...
I want to go on the record as an American and say that I LOVE haggis!
Robyn, the thing really does try to turn itself inside out.
Being steamed inside the impermeable skin means that as soon as the knife cuts into it the whole thing spills out. It's great fun to watch.
Ms.M: Yay for Rocky Mountain Oysters! Most people don't realise that the sheer number of calves getting castrated each year in the cattle industry leaves a great big mountain of beef testes that have to go somewhere.
Put 'em on my plate. I'll eat 'em up!
Not so sure about chicken gizzards, though. When I worked at a butcher's evenings and weekends at school I must have plucked and drawn thousands of chickens, turkeys, geese and more besides, especially in the run-up to Christmas. I grew to hate the gizzard as the darned things were always splitting and making a mess everywhere. The lungs are real pretty though. Hee hee.
I'm making a resolution to cook and eat more of the tastier and lesser-known parts of animals from here on in.
Kate, you have a rare and precious gift. If ever you're this side of the pond pop in and we can cook up a storm.
Hanging my head in prairie girl shame. I admit that just looking at the haggis made me feel gaggish. And when you said it was trying to turn itself out, I shuddered. With horror.
It just looks like a sort of um...purplish bald baby head. Bing would love this, I already know. She would eat that thing with relish and keep looking at me and laughing at my timidity. But...I'd get back at her later by refusing to kiss her haggis coated lips.
Mmmm … haggis-coated lips! Yummy.
You're right: it does look like a purplish bald baby head. That's going to make me look at babies in an entirely new, and mouthwatering, light.
You can get veggie haggis. It's not the real thing but it's pretty good (says the lapsed veggie).
You make it sound almost appealing!
Almost, Neetzy, but not quite enough.
Posts like these really help me watch my figa! I'm always entertained when you're in the kitchen so at least there's that.
I think surely if we have to utilize more of a creature we could do some non-edible preparations of bowels and linings. Would not a sheep's stomach make a great little coin purse or a useful tongue of a shoe? If it wants to turn itself inside out, perhaps it would be just right as a pocket in a poor persons pair of pants.
I'll take a healthy helping of rutabaga. I've recently discovered them to be quite tasty!
Shan, I believe you just cracked me up.
Hee hee, Shan! That's too funny (and rather tempting - I've always felt that tripe would make a great, and stylish, rain hat).
I'm so glad you've discovered the joy of rutabaga. I remember cracking up a while back when you wrote that you'd "accidentally" bought one and were not sure what to do with it. They are marvellous in winter soups and stews and casseroles as well as with haggis.
Petrea: me too!
I was once afraid of haggis; still not sure that I would eat it but seeing this has made it much less scary. To be complete though, you must tell Phil that a plate without greens is incomplete. He could whip some finely chopped chives through those neets and tatties. I love eating swede raw but it does have some nasty after effects, lol.
You are very lucky to have such a wonderful cook for a brother.
Mme, the Scots don't believe in vegetables (other than roots). If a deep fried pizza has no meat on it they consider it a vegetable.
We make up for the lack of greens on the other 364 days of the year.
I, too am tempted by raw swede. When it's diced it looks and feels just like apple, though it doesn't taste quite so good.
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