Elisa's Cantine: Scotch Eggs

Scotch eggs is not a dish for people who have issues with their cholesterol. It's a hard boiled egg, surrounded by sausage meat, breaded and deep fried. It's pretty intense and heavy. It's also, in my opinion, not a very fun dish to make. It's messy and you have to be careful with your timing. But it's also really tasty, which is why it's on this blog.

The recipe is from Robert Irvine, in the October 2013 issue of the Food Network magazine. The recipe doesn't specify what kind of pork sausage you should use. However, having tried it with Italian sausage, I felt that it may have overpowered the taste of the eggs, so a milder, more neutral flavoured sausage would work better.

Makes 6 Scotch Eggs
Ingredients

8 large eggs
2 tbsp white vinegar
450g of pork or veal sausage
4 tbsp of chopped fresh herbs (parsley, chive, oregano, tarragon)
4 cups vegetable oil for deep frying
salt and pepper
1/4 cup milk
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 tbsp mustard
juice of 1 lemon

Step 1: Cooking the eggs

Place 6 of the eggs in a saucepan. Cover with cold water, about up to an inch over the eggs. Add the vinegar. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to minimum and leave uncovered for 8 minutes.

Once done, drain the water and cool off the eggs by running cold water over them for a couple of minutes.

Gently peel the the eggs and set aside.

Step 2: Preparing the meat

In a stand mixer, mix the sausage meat (removed of it's casing) with the herbs and one of the remaining eggs.

Before

Mix together until well blended.

After

Slightly moisten you hands and gently mold the sausage mixture over the peeled eggs.

Step 3: Preparing the breading

At this point, you can start heating up your oil in saucepan on medium heat (at around 325°F). Also preheat your oven at 350°F.

Put the flour mixed with the salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Mix the last egg with the milk in a bowl. Place the panko in a third dish.

If you're unfamiliar with panko, you're missing out. They're Japanese style breadcrumbs. Unlike traditional breadcrumbs, they're not made with the crust and they're must larger and airier. Using them gives fried food a much lighter and crunchier breading. You can find them in the Asian section of most supermarkets.

Now that you have your dishes lined up, it's time to make the breading. Coat your sausage molded egg in the flour, dip in the milk/egg mix, and roll in the panko.

Step 4: Cooking the Scotch eggs

Once that's done, you are ready to deep fry the eggs. Fry them in batches if needed, until golden, roughly 3 minutes. Flip them if necessary.

Place the fried eggs on a baking sheet and bake at 350°F for roughly 10 minutes. This extra step is to make sure that the sausage meat is fully cooked through.

After baking

Mix the mayonnaise with the mustard and lemon juice to make the dipping sauce.

Cut the eggs in half and serve with the dipping sauce.

Normally, the yolk of the egg should be fully cooked. For reasons unknown, my eggs managed to go through boiling water, deep frying, and baking without the yolk fully cooking. I thought this was very strange, but being a fan of soft-boiled eggs this was not an issue.