Britain and Ireland · Volume 35, The Pie, the Pluck and the Girder Drink
Haggis, Neeps and Tatties
Lowland Scotland
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 4 hours
- Researched
- 10 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
The sheep's pluck, heart, liver and lungs, minced with toasted oatmeal, suet and a spicing of pepper and mace, packed into a stomach casing and simmered for hours. F. Marian McNeill's 1929 recipe in The Scots Kitchen is the standard reference, and the version this chapter builds from.
As tradition built it
Serves 6 to 8. About 4 hours.
Ingredients
For the haggis
- 1 whole sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs), or a prepared beef bung casing filled with the same
- 1 breakfastcupful toasted oatmeal
- 225g suet
- 2 medium onion, finely chopped
- to taste black pepper, mace and salt
- as needed stock, to moisten
- 1 a cleaned sheep's stomach, sewn for stuffing
To serve
- 600g swede (neeps), boiled and mashed with butter and black pepper
- 750g potatoes (tatties), boiled and mashed with butter and black pepper
Method
- Mince the pluck and mix thoroughly with the toasted oatmeal, suet, chopped onion, pepper and salt.
- Moisten with stock, then pack into the cleaned sheep's stomach only a little over halfway full, to leave room for the oatmeal to swell.
- Sew the stomach shut. Simmer in water or stock for three hours, pricking it all over with a large needle as soon as it begins to swell, to stop it bursting.
- Serve with neeps and tatties, mashed separately and dressed simply with butter and black pepper. McNeill's own older pairing, clapshot, mashes the swede and potato together in one dish rather than keeping the two separate.
What a modern chef changes
A chinois-fined forcemeat, a sous vide casing, and potatoes rebuilt in two textures
Rung 1
Method
- Build the pluck mixture exactly as tradition dictates, but pass it through a chinois after mincing for a finer, more even texture than a home mincer alone gives.
- Toast and grind the oatmeal and pepper fresh in a spice grinder rather than using pre ground stock, for a sharper, more distinct spice note.
- Stuff into a natural casing as before, but cook it sous vide at a precise 82°C for three hours instead of an open simmer: the casing never risks bursting under uneven heat, and the texture inside sets far more evenly than any stovetop pot achieves.
- Finish the neeps as a smooth, high power blended purée rather than a rough mash.
- Serve the tatties as a single, confidently sized fondant potato, browned hard on one face in beef dripping, rather than mashed at all.