It is an acquired taste Bushy, and certainly not everybody likes Haggis...but it is not unpleasant.
I think that the "dish" came into being many hundreds of years ago when the Scots, like most people of that time, had to make the most of their scant food supplies. Consequently there wasn't very much on a sheep that they didn't consume or use in some way...hence the haggis being cooked in the cleaned sheep's stomach.
A traditional Scottish Haggis Recipe
I love my haggis served with neeps and tatties. Neeps is mashed up turnip or swede, usually with a wee bit of milk, and tatties are potatoes. I prefer mine mashed with lots of butter. Take a bit of the haggis, neeps and tatties on your fork at a time for a real feast. Even better washed down with a wee dram of whisky - some people like to add some whisky to the haggis. In a traditional Burn's supper the haggis will be piped in by a bagpipe player and an esteemed guest will address the beastie with some words of Robert Burn's before it's served and toasted with a malt.
Haggis Ingredients:
1 sheep's stomach bag
1 sheep's pluck - liver, lungs and heart
3 onions
250g beef Suet
150g oatmeal
salt and black pepper
a pinch of cayenne
150mls of stock/gravy
Haggis Cooking Directions:
1. Clean the stomach bag thoroughly and soak overnight. In the morning turn it inside out.
2. Wash the pluck and boil for 1.5 hours, ensuring the windpipe hangs over the pot allowing drainage of the impurities.
3. Mince the heart and lungs and grate half the liver.
4. Chop up the onions and suet.
5. Warm the oatmeal in the oven.
6. Mix all the above together and season with the salt and pepper. Then add the cayenne.
7. Pour over enough of the pluck boiled water to make the mixture watery.
8. Fill the bag with the mixture until it's half full.
9. Press out the air and sew the bag up.
10. Boil for 3 hours (you may need to prick the bag with a wee needle if it looks like blowing up!) without the lid on.
11. Serve with neeps and tatties.
Taste Ye Back: Great Scots and the Food That Made Them has a traditional haggis, neeps and tatties recipe by top Scottish chef and cookery writer Sue Lawrence.
The perfect haggis should not be too moist but should not be too dry either. It should be slightly spicy due to the cayenne pepper ingredient.
The book A Cook's Tour of Scotland by Sue Lawrence describes how butchers make their haggis and gives away some of their seasoning secrets.
Haggis also makes a delicious moist stuffing for chicken
www.scottishrecipes.co...aggis2.htm
Check out the above website for other haggis ideas.
Cheers, Vince