Scotch Eggs 2 Ways

Who doesn’t love a scotch egg? Even a crappy one from Sainsbury’s is a glorious feast, but if you’ve never had a freshly made restaurant quality scotch egg with a runny middle and a crunchy outer, served up with a little piccalilli you haven’t lived!

They are surprisingly easy to make so long as you have the right equipment (a thermometer to establish the temperature of your oil), a little manual dexterity and a stopwatch – these babies are all about the timing. Too softly boiled and the egg will be an absolute nightmare to peel and wrap. Then to maintain the runny yolk how long do you deep fry for? All will be revealed!

Two ways? Well there’s obviously the first, more traditional way of a breadcrumb outer, but they are also exceptionally good wrapped in bacon instead. The latter is ideal for the BBQ as you can get them on the grill, mop them with sauce and the result is smokey, sticky caramelized bacon coated sausage and egg based goodness!

[alert type=”muted” close=”false” heading=”Ingredients”] [icon_list] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 4 large free range eggs (golden yolked ones are best) [/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 400g sausages[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] Breadcrumbs[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] Streaky bacon[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] An extra egg or two! [/icon_list_item] [/icon_list] [/alert]

Method

1. Put 4 room temperature eggs into a pan and cover with water. Bring the pan quickly to the boil and turn the heat down to a simmer and set a 4 minute timer. Less than this and they will be an absolute bitch to peel, more than this and they’ll be hard boiled. (We heat up the water with the egg in like this to make the outside a bit harder and easier to work with).
2. Squeeze the sausage meat into a bowl and divide into 4 balls
3. When the eggs are done, empty into a colander and run cold water over them for a minute or so, or even better, plunge into a bowl of iced water – we need to stop any residual heat from cooking the egg further
4. To peel, loosen the shell by cracking it all over. Basically, drop the egg onto a hard surface from and inch or so and continue to pick it up, rotate and drop again until fully cracked – you might think I’m being excessive here, but there’s nothing more irritating than splitting an egg because a big chunk of hard shell went through it as you tried to peel it off!
5. Lay the eggs on a bit of kitchen roll and dust then with a bit of flour. Take a sausage patty and flatten it into a round slightly bigger than a burger. Pop an egg into it and then pull up the sides of the patty around it.
6. To enclose the egg, the technique is to gently work the sides up until they start to connect at the top. The meat will be quite pliable, but you may need to pinch and flatten the edges as you work to help the process along. By the time you’ve done the second one you’ll have the hang of it!

Breadcrumbed

1. Tip the breadcrumbs into a bowl. Crack the extra egg into a different bowl and whisk it.
2. Dredge each meaty ball of goodness through the egg, then the breadcrumbs.
3. Dredge in egg a second time, then give each a final roll in  either some rusk or some panko breadcrumbs for a superior crunch.
4. Get a small pan and heat 3-4 inches of oil to 170-190 degrees. Cook the eggs one at a time, rotating every now and again for an even cook.
5. Assuming everything was at room temperature, you’re going to want to cook for around 8 minutes. Avoid letting the oil drop outside of the above temperature range.
6. Set each egg on some kitchen roll to blot away the excess oil, allow to cool slightly so they’re warm rather than hot, then serve on a board with a little side pot of pickle or piccalilli, cutting in half to show that marvellous yolk

Bacon Wrapped

1. Simply wrap 2 of the eggs in the strips of bacon and you’re ready to go.
2. Place them on the BBQ and cook them for no more than 10 mins, rotating occasionally to catch all sides evenly. Close the lid between rotations.
3. Paint them with the sauce of your choosing as you rotate them.

[alert type=”info” close=”false” heading=”Consider this…”] [icon_list] [icon_list_item type=”lightbulb-o”] You can cook both styles in the oven if you want to be slightly more healthy, but you’ll almost certainly lose the runny middle [/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”lightbulb-o”] Add whatever you like to the sausage meat – chilli flakes, spring onion, herbs, cheese etc. [/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”lightbulb-o”] I have made this with a mix of black pudding and sausage meat, mistakes were made, here they are: 1) I used a 50-50 ratio, that’s too much black pudding. 2) I used a giant stick of black pudding I bought from Costco, I think that the quality was too poor. If you’re going to do this, do it with probably no more than 25% black pudding, and use a nice quality one, the ‘Fruit Pig’ one sold by Grid Iron Meat is probably the best I’ve had. [/icon_list_item] [/icon_list] [/alert]