A Syrian-style Version of Haggis in Honor of Robert Burns

posted on: Jan 22, 2020

By: Habeeb Salloum/Arab America Contributing Writer

On my return trip to Canada on the ship bringing back Canadian soldiers after the second world war, I chummed with a fellow-colleague who happened to be of Scottish origin.  One day while on the ship we began discussing the foods of the world and our choice of the best to our taste, of course, the national foods of Scotland and Syria came into the picture.  I bet you have no dish like haggis, Iain my Scottish friend proudly declared.

What’s haggis”, I asked.  Although I had heard of a Scottish dish called haggis, I had no idea what it was.  I played along letting him think that I was a worldly young man who was aware of his favorite dish.

About 20 years later, while in Toronto, I heard about a food outlet at Eglinton Square selling haggis. I remembered my conversation with Iain on the ship and I decided to learn about haggis.

I had been dabbling in food writing for a few years and thought to myself that it was time to try this famous Scottish dish memorialized by Robert Burns in 1787 as the national dish of his Scotland poem, “Address to a Haggis.”  I headed to Eglinton Square with the mission of purchasing haggis. as I entered the store, I saw people milling around a large table where Scottish flags were set up. I picked up a few pounds of it and brought it home to try.

As I placed my dining dish on the table, I called my wife and children in to watch this moment of affinity – to Scotland and the country’s renowned poet.  As I cut then bit into the haggis, I memories of my mother’s Syrian-style stuffed stomach and intestines returned.

It was not something new for me as my mother had, on our Saskatchewan farm, prepared a similar dish at least once a year when we butchered a steer or a few sheep. To me, it was usually the best food of the year. The stuffing was different where the haggis is stuffed with liver, heart, lung, kidney, and oatmeal while the Syrian version is stuffed with meat, chickpeas, and rice.

Even though year after year, our family enjoyed a bounty of stuffed vegetables during late summer and early autumn, it was the time when the frost came and my father killed a few sheep or a steer for our winter meat to which I always looked forward.  An outside shed was our food freezer and, from these animals, we had meat all winter long. Yet, it was not the meat dishes that I anticipated, but the thought of our yearly feast of stuffed tripe and intestines that would make my mouth water.

My mother would spend hours scrubbing and cleaning the stomach and intestines of the sheep and/or steer, preparing them for stuffing. First, she would scrub with soap the outside, then turn them inside out and repeat the procedure. This she would do a number of times until the stomach and intestines were very clean.  The cleaned stomach and intestines were then soaked in salt and vinegar and placed in the cool shed ready to be stuffed the next day.

As was usual in doing most farm chores, our children would also give a hand.  We would bring the hot water that my mother had boiling on the stove and carry the remains from the stomach and intestines to the manure pile behind the nearby barn.  It was a task which I did not detest for I knew that soon we would be feasting on stuffed stomach and intestines.

In the evening my mother would soak the chickpeas – readying them for the stuffing.  In the morning, she would drain, then split the chickpeas by placing them on one half of a towel.   She would then fold the other half of the towel over the chickpeas, then roll with a rolling pin. This would loosen the skin and split each chickpea into two.  She would then discard the skin and place the split chickpeas into a bowl, ready to mix with the other ingredients to make a stuffing.

That morning as the stuffed stomach and intestines were being cooked, their aroma would make my hunger pangs increase by the minute.   By the time the dish was ready, I was in a dream world mesmerized by my thoughts of the mouth-watering meal.  It was an annual meal which I will always remember.

In the ensuing years, I have often prepared this dish, sans the work of cleaning the stomach and intestines.  Today, in large cities, one can find in many meat markets cleaned lamb stomachs, ready for stuffing. No more does a cook have the arduous task of cleaning.  As a friend of mine remarked, “Thank God for our modern meat markets!”

You really need to have a ‘stomach’ for offal, and remember, ‘offal’ is not ‘awful’.

Stuffed Sheep Stomach

If one can find cleaned intestines in the meat markets, the same stuffing as used for the stomach may be utilized.  The intestine should be twisted, sausage size, and cooked with the stomach.

1 sheep stomach, scraped, then scrubbed with soap and very thoroughly washed

6 teaspoons salt

4 tablespoons vinegar

1 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon garlic powder

4 tablespoons butter

1/2-pound lamb or beef with a little fat, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

4 large onions, finely chopped

2 cups split chickpeas or 2 cups cooked chickpeas

1 1/2 cups rice

1 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

4 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

Cut stomach into 4 pieces then rub with 4 teaspoons of the salt.  Place in a bowl, then add vinegar and cover with water. Allow standing overnight then drain and thoroughly wash, then dry.

Mix allspice and garlic powder, then rub both inside and outside the stomach pieces.  Sew into bags with an opening then set aside.

Melt butter in a frying pan then sauté meat over medium heat until it begins to brown.  Stir in the remaining 2 teaspoons of salt, 3/4 of the onions, and remaining ingredients then set aside as a stuffing.

Stuff stomach bags then sew openings.  Place in a large saucepan along with the remaining 1/4 of the onions, then cover with water to about three inches above the stomach bags and bring to boil.  Cook for 1 hour over medium heat or until the stomach is well cooked, adding more water, if necessary, to keep the stomach covered.

Serve hot along with the ‘stomach water’ as a soup, after adding spices to taste.