Haggis

Up until this week, Hubby and I had never had haggis. Like a lot of people, the thought of having a sheep’s heart, lungs, and liver cooked in its own stomach seemed pretty gross.

Abel and Cole sent me an email that had haggis-filled pastries. I thought that would be a good way to try haggis. Unfortunately, when I went to look for it I couldn’t find it. I did find just haggis. So we decided to just get that.

We were told to make it in the oven or to boil it. I decided to put it in the oven. We were told it would be good with sweet potato mash, but we didn’t have any sweet potatoes, so I roasted red potatoes and some parsnips.

Turns out that a lot of modern haggis doesn’t come with the sheep’s stomach. Abel and Cole’s haggis comes wrapped in a type of plastic wrap. You leave that on and wrap it all in tin foil. Then you put it in the oven for an hour. That’s it.

You might be able to tell in the picture above that the plastic split during the cooking process. That made the last step easy, as we were supposed to cut it open. Then you spoon it out

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M was the first to try it and she said “yum.” After a few bites she changed the “yum” to “spicy” and didn’t eat any more. N wouldn’t try it for a while. When she finally did, she said “don’t like”. Hubby said it was good and tasted like sausage. I thought it tasted better than sausage until I got to the spice. It has a nice mushy texture and a good savory taste. You can just catch a hint of oatmeal. It’s not spicy right away. It is the last thing you taste and it doesn’t linger.

It does have a bit of spice. But the potatoes were enough to cut it. I can understand how sweet potato mash would be good with it.

Haggis is made up of offal (Lamb: Lung, liver, heart, kidney. Beef: liver, heart, kidney), Mutton flank, Oatmeal, Onion, Salt, Pepper, Nutmeg, Bay Leaves. While some of those ingredients may not sound pleasant, don’t let that deter you. I would definitely eat it again with potatoes. I would like to try it with sweet potato mash.

Haggis gets the Closs stamp of approval!

*brief correction of last week’s post – turns out what I called “London Bridge” was actually the “Tower Bridge.” But, we did walk across the real London Bridge on our way from the Borough Market to the Tower of London