Haggis - "That recipe seems very familiar..."

Traditional haggis is a meal that has never appealed to me. In my pre-veg days, certain types of meat had a taboo attached to them and consuming internal organs of animals was something I couldn't understand how anyone in their right mind would find appetising. When I saw Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe's haggis recipe, it was a different story. The recipe sound intriguing and somewhat reminiscent of a nut roast. I was particularly interested in some of the creative ways that Johanna had put the leftovers to use, in haggis nachos and haggis pizza.

Haggis pizza sounded very appealing and after the success of the man's vegan meat lover pizza's using leftover bean burgers, I decided this would be the recipe to try! My main goal of making haggis was not to eat it in the traditional manner but to use it as a pizza topping which didn't seem right. The evening that I prepared the haggis, my veggie crisper was almost bare so I omitted the mushrooms and doubled the amount of kidney beans. The only other change I made was to add a couple of cloves of minced garlic as it's something I like to include on a regular basis.

After sitting in the fridge overnight, my prepared haggis was ready for pizza making. I had planned to make 2 pizzas, a margherita and the haggis pizza. The haggis pizza was layered with tomato pizza sauce and vegan pesto mixed together, garlic, cheezly, chopped haggis, capsicum, mushrooms and spring onions. Sometimes I drizzle a bit of sweet chilli or BBQ sauce on top of our pizzas, however on this occasion I wasn't sure which would suit and left it plain. After cutting the pizza we chose our favoured sauces and found that the haggis pizza worked well with either. It was a delicious pizza, the mixed herbs in the haggis seemed to really shine through and add so much flavour.      

After the success of the haggis pizza there was still 3/4 of the haggis remaining so I decided to freeze 1/4 for another pizza in the future and use the rest in a meal complimented with vegetables. The haggis was served with gravy alongside a potato/sweet potato mash, roasted carrots and roast cauliflower and broccoli drizzled with garlic margarine. This was another popular meal and my son commented he preferred the haggis over the nut roasts I had made.

Johanna's recipe had been bookmarked for a good while before I finally managed to give it a try. The day after I made it, Steph announced a blogging event called "That recipe seems very familiar..." to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of Planet VeGMeL. The idea is to cook a recipe posted by another Melbourne veg*n blogger and then write a post about it. This is my first entry for the event although with the huge volume of recipes I store up, it may not be the last!


Vegan Haggis (Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe)

1/2 heaped cup mixed nuts (almonds, cashews, pecans)
4 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
2/3 cup rolled oats
2/3 cup oatmeal
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
2 medium carrots
1 x 400g tin kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon Marmite (or other yeast extract)
1 tablespoon whisky
freshly ground pepper, to taste
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 teaspoons mixed herbs

Process the mixed nuts in a coffee grinder until they become powdery (This step was performed in error as I didn't notice in the recipe that the nuts were finely chopped which would add some more texture).

Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a large frying pan, melt half of the margarine and cook the nuts, oats and oatmeal for about 3 minutes over medium heat. Remove from the heat and transfer to a large bowl

Place the onion, garlic, carrot and beans in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is very fine. Melt the remaining margarine in the frying pan and cook the vegetables and beans for about 2 minutes. Add the oats and nut mixture to the frying pan with the vegetable mixture. Mix in the yeast extract, whisky, lemon juice, pepper and mixed herbs and cook for another 5 minutes.

Spread the mixture evenly in a 28cm x 18cm tin lined with baking paper. Cook for 40 minutes in the oven or until the top has browned and the mixture feels firm to the touch .