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14 years ago
Haggis - not off topic
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14 years ago
That's a cute idea - lucky cat finding it all to him/herself lol
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14 years ago
What exactly is haggis filled with?
Lucille
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14 years ago
It all hinges on the reputation that Scots have as to being mean. Centuries ago when people travelled if the end of the day came and you were nowhere, you looked for a house and knocked on the door and odds on, the family would shelter you, to the best of their ability, for the night.
It was Johnson got the 'mean' bit going when he travelled in Scotland. The Scots would provide him with what they had which was pretty mean fare, they themselves being impoverished by the g d English.
Haggis is made basically from all the bits that could not be sold easily. Organs, lites etc. ground up with oats added. It actually (when properly made) has little flavour after boiling, hence one eats it with neaps, turnips, for the flavour they give. And because neaps were very readily available. Perhaps it is really just another variety of sausage.
More than you wanted to know lol
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14 years ago
Not really! My grandmother used every conceivable part of a food product that she could use without poisoning anyone and used to stuff the neck of a chicken with a concoction made of flour, stewed onions, some seasonings and lots and lots of rendered chicken fat that could clog your arteries just by smelling it.
I also remember reading something, somewhere or other, that the origin of gefilte fish was that you could take a very small amount of nearly any kind of fish, fill it with some kind of filler, maybe even oatmeal, season it and feed a bunch of people healthy food.
Lucille
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14 years ago
My grandmother (who was so like yours as we know) figured good work for little hands was finding minute pebbles in the driveway, then inserting them into a strip of chicken intestine, that was then inserted into the other end of the intestine to make a hoop.
Said piece of intestine was then baked in the oven when something was being cooked until it was thoroughly dried. When winding wool (it only came in skeins then) the wool was wound onto the intestine ring and if your wool dropped while you were knitting, a quick flip would make the ball rattle lol As I said, busy work for idle hands that might get up to something mischievous otherwise lol
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14 years ago
I wouldn't say haggis has little flavour - the ones I've tasted have been good and generally quite peppery.
Just a quick look at recipes show show of them call for cayenne pepper and allspice, as well as the standard s&p, while I found others with mace and nutmeg. The meat ingredients vary widely, too. I'm sure that the cook used whatever she had on hand.
If you don't like the idea of boiling it in its traditional casing (a sheep's stomach), I think you could certainly cook the filling as a meatloaf.
MargW
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14 years ago
From The Scotsman's Haggisclopedia:
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14 years ago
Hey, one of the vegetarian options included yeast extract---Marmite in haggis??
Dawne
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14 years ago
I'm surprised to say that the vegan and vegetarian ones don't sound too horrid, especially the one that's stuffed into an onion and not an animal part. Or as MargW suggested as a meatloaf.
Maybe just a touch of the marmite in that mix wouldn't be too awful. Not like spreading it all by itself on a defenseless cracker.
Lucille
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14 years ago
Marg I just don't know where the Highlanders were going to find cayenne or all spice lol They may add that now, but it is very non-traditional.
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14 years ago
The only "fancy" spice in this recipe is nutmeg
However, those of a nervous disposition should be warned that the recipe contains the instruction "Trim off any excess fat and sinew from the sheep's intestine and, if present, discard the windpipe" You can get your revenge on the haggis at
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14 years ago
That actually sounds a lot like the one my father used to make, I don't recall nutmeg though. I tend to put nutmeg with beef things, so no doubt it would be a nice addition.
Lol whackthehaggis is like whackamole, terrible.
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14 years ago
I was going to say the Haggis was filled with Hags but that would insulting the Hags.
I remember a few times (like watching a good horror movie) someone of scotch decent march with the grey hag.. on a silver platter held high over his head and being piped in to the room by a highlander. The silver platter and hag.. was set down on a table and then dedicated (probably to some long lost scotch corpse). Then the man who had carried in the hag.. slaughtered it (sliced it open from end to end) with a long dagger. The innards spilled out of the hag... on to the silver platter and these innards were then served as some kind of delicacy to any one in the room that had not fainted or who was still sober enough to eat it. Darned if I can remember what the innards tasted like. LOL
Fred
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14 years ago