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English Haggis
Haggis is peculiar to Scotland, but few people outside of that country care for it as originally made,--from the intestines, lungs, and stomach of a sheep,--so the English version is given, as likely to be popular when once it is tried. Weigh and chop the tongue, liver, and kidneys of a sheep, then add half their weight in fat bacon, minced fine, 2 slices of stale bread in crumbs, 2 anchovies, pounded, a spoonful of lemon juice and the grated rind, pepper, salt, and two eggs, beaten. Stir well, pour into a mould, steam it for 2 hours and turn out. Serve hot, with a sauce, if desired.
This is a steamed offal loaf rather than a true haggis — no stomach bag, no oatmeal, no pluck. Treated as a terrine, it behaves predictably; the main work is sourcing the meats and keeping the steam gentle.
- The hinge: chop, don't purée"Chop" here means hand-chopped to a coarse mince, and that texture is what keeps the loaf from turning pasty. A food processor will emulsify liver in seconds; pulse briefly or grind on a coarse plate.
- Sourcing the offalLamb tongue, liver and kidney are order-ahead items from a butcher rather than supermarket stock. Lamb's tongue needs to be simmered until tender (roughly 1.5–2 hours) and peeled before chopping; liver and kidney go in raw, with the kidney's white core cut out.
- Weights, since none are givenA workable batch is about 1.5 lb of mixed tongue, liver and kidney, so roughly 12 oz fat bacon. "Half their weight in fat bacon" is the one proportion the recipe does fix, and it matters — liver and kidney are lean and the pudding dries out without it.
- Fat baconModern streaky bacon is cured, smoked and much leaner than the fat bacon meant here. Unsmoked pork belly or fresh pork back fat gives a closer result; if using ordinary bacon, cut the added salt back sharply.
- AnchoviesTwo salt-packed anchovies pounded to paste, or four oil-packed fillets, mashed. They are seasoning, not flavour in their own right — the finished loaf should not taste of fish.
- The mould and the steamingA 1–1.5 quart pudding basin or a loaf tin, well buttered and covered with pleated foil or a cloth tied down, set on a trivet in a covered pot with water halfway up. Keep the water at a bare simmer; a hard boil makes the eggs curdle and the loaf weep.
- When it is doneTwo hours is about right for a 1.5 quart basin, but check with a thermometer: 160°F at the centre. Let it stand 15 minutes before turning out or it will collapse.
- Yield and sauceServes six to eight as a main course, more sliced cold. The recipe leaves the sauce unspecified; a brown gravy or a sharp onion sauce would suit, and something acidic -- mustard, pickled walnuts, a redcurrant relish -- cuts the richness better.
"With a Saucepan Over the Sea" belongs to a genre of turn-of-the-century American cookbooks that toured foreign dishes for home cooks, and this entry shows the genre's habitual nerve: having declared real haggis unpalatable, it substitutes a dish that is not haggis at all. What is described is closer to an English steamed meat pudding -- minced offal, breadcrumbs, suet or fat bacon, eggs, bound and cooked in a basin -- a form found in British cookery well before this book was written, and one use among others for a butchered animal's tongue, liver and kidneys. The pounded anchovy is a period marker: anchovies were a common savoury deepener in English kitchens, dissolved into gravies, forcemeats and puddings for a salt-and-umami note nobody was expected to identify on the plate. Genuine haggis, by contrast, is built on sheep's pluck and oatmeal cooked in the stomach lining, and its association with Robert Burns's 1786 "Address to a Haggis" had made it a national emblem long before this book took its dismissive line.