FoodieMemoirs
Scotch Eggs
Is an egg still healthy if you wrap it in sausage and deep fry it? I say YES! ha ha ha So, I have been meaning to try scotch eggs for awhile now and last night I finally brought myself to make them. These little devils were supposedly created by a department store in London in the early 1700's and are common in the United Kingdom. A friend of ours who lived in the UK for some time recalled them fondly, and I have been intrigued ever since. Apparently they were once called a scotched egg, referring to the "scotched", or hacked meat around the outside. Subsequently, scotched now generally refers to anything breaded and fried.
The Scotch egg is essentially a hard-boiled egg, encased in pork sausage, coated in bread crumbs and deep fried. It is a treat to say the least.
I decided to make a few "improvements" to the recipe by using hot Italian sausage and parmesan in the breadcrumb coating. I also did one other... very experimental thing.... Recently upon devouring the editor's notes in my new, favorite magazine, Lucky Peach, I discovered a note about using Cream of Wheat to coat deep fried foods. Apparently, it is supposed to produce a superior crisp on the outside. I decided to give it a try. This is despite the fact that Lucky Peach seems to be written by just a few guys under the influence of substantial alcohol, and their recipes have proven to be less than well tested. In fact, this Cream of Wheat comment was printed in the magazine, simply based on a rumor. The author hadn't even tried it yet. But none-the-less I figured I would give it a shot.
Well I think the rumor was correct. The crisp on the outside was no less than outstanding! I will of course, have to test this out again on another deep fried treat as the crisp also could have come from the sausage. It is difficult to tell. Either way, they were amazing!!!
I chose to put only a light amount of sausage around the exterior of my egg as we are crispy sausage sort of people. I looked at many pictures on line of this thick, pale layer of sausage around eggs and sort of gagged a little. Unless it is blood sausage or something like that, I prefer my sausage "wicked" crispy (as any girl from Massachusetts would say).
We ate our Scotch Eggs with ceasar salad. It was perfect. I love hard-boiled eggs in my ceasar salad, so why not wrapped in sausage on the side?
Here are a few tips concerning Scotch Egg making.
- Coat the eggs in flour before wrapping in sausage. I tried it both ways and it was much less difficult to adhere the sausage with the flour coating. (ahem- adhere the sausage hahaha)
- I believe that these could easily be made ahead of time and then coated in bread crumbs and fried at a later time... say, if you wanted to make them for brunch
- They are very good dipped in garlic chili paste
- They are even better dipped in garlic chili paste mixed with a bit of peanut butter. What? ... you think eggs and peanut butter sounds gross? well it may "sound" gross, but it is actually AMAZING. Try it.
Get the Scotch Egg Recipe in the Cookbook
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