Haggis Stage 2

So back to the Haggis, once cooled overnight and after yesterdays 90 minutes of boiling the pluck has contracted into a pretty dense lump of meat. Separate the parts of the pluck. Clockwise from top right - heart, two lungs, two lobes of liver

Chop the heart and lungs finely - You can use a food processor to do the dirty deed for you if pulsed gently. You want a gravelly texture, not paté. Grate the liver - a weird and strangely satisfying sensation.

At last a nice, if not an eye watering experience

Toast the oatmeal

Add the onions to the meats and season with salt, coarse ground white pepper, sage, thyme, rosemary and savory.

Savory ... a Scottish summer rosemary with very soft leaves 

Add the oatmeal, the suet and a pint or so of the liquid in which the pluck was poached. The mix should be moist but not enough to hold together as a single mass.

 

The ox bung thoroughly cleaned and salted, rinse it inside and out with clear water, pat dry with a kitchen towel and lay out on a tray. There is no reason for this except to allow you a smutty smirk at the sight of a two foot rubbery condom.

Col's words not mine, so now one can guess what's

under those Scottish kilts!

Spooning the stuffing into the bung until it's half full. Col wanted to make two so I stopped early and cut off the bung short. Expel any air left in the casing ...

tie tightly with several turns of butcher's string.

 Work the filling back out into the full length of the casing.
Try not to look like you are to experienced or even enjoying this job, serious business!

 Lower the haggis into gently simmering water. The casing will contract and the stuffing will swell so it's essential to watch carefully and use a skewer to pierce and release any trapped air.
 Cooking time, just over an hour and a half.

Apparently if you cut into the haggis while it's still piping hot, the casing will retract and the stuffing will ooze out appealingly.

Oh you didn't really think Col and I would actually cook it!
 noooo he's just of my another Scotch drinking buddy.
 
 But really after having Haggis a few times now the texture defies description. As velvety and mouth-coating as foie gras yet with a nutty edge. Any fattiness disappears by serving hot but nothing prepares you for the smell or the richness.
 
So Col all we need to do know is find a Piper and a Real Chef and  well the rest is Scottish History.