Scotch eggs.

Now I saw them being made on the television the other day and it reminded me that is was such a long time since I had had one that I had to make some. Scotch eggs are something that you can buy quite cheaply but you never know if you have a god one or not until you bite into it. That is normally when you are filed with disappointment and ask yourself why did you buy that for. And that is why I have not had a scotch egg in such a long time.  So here is my recipe for a good, I would not say perfect scotch egg.

You will need

340g/12oz sausage meat
Salt, ground white pepper, nutmeg and ground black to taste
4 eggs
Plain flour
1 baton egg
5 or 6 good serving spoons of white bread crumbs

Now if you are like e you do not want you egg completely hard boiled before you make your scotch egg.  Like to have the yolk in the centre still under cooked.  So I bring my water to the boil and then gently lower my eggs in and cooked them on a simmer for about 7minutes. Then take them out of the hot water and in to cold water as soon as you can. This will cook the white and not the yolk hopefully so you will still have a good yolk in the finished article.

The next is seasoning you sausage meat, now seasoned meat cold will need more salt and pepper than hot meat. So get your sausage meat and add 2 o3 three pinches of salt and at least one of the two peppers and one of the nutmeg , cook a little and see what it taste like. You are happy proceed or season a little more.

Now once you have your eggs and meat seasoned then all you have to do is assemble and cook the eggs. Roll the egg in the flour, then dived the sausage meat into four and wrap it around the egg giving it an even coat of the meat. If you find that the meat is sticking you your hand dip them in some cold water to prevent the meat from sticking.

Now a quick word about your bread crumbs, if you can make your own by cutting of the crusts and drying the bread out in the air. Once totally dry then plus them in the food processor so you have a nice clean and white bread crumb. If you get loads of crust in your bread crumb you will have a speckled looking egg and not a even brown finish to the final egg.

Now roll the eggs back in the flour and then in the beaten egg, egg as much of the egg off as you can, then back in to the flour, back into the egg and finally in to the bread crumbs. By dipping it twice into the flour and egg you help build up a really sticky protective layer for the bread crumbs to stick to.

Now you need to fry them in oil for about 12 minutes, and the oil does not want to be too hot. You need your oil at about 200c/400f as it will cool as soon as you add the eggs then turn it down to about 180c/350f. You have to give time for the meat to cook but not to born or burn the crumbs on the outside. Then out of the fryer on to some kitchen paper and allow the oil to drain off them.  Cool them and take them on a picnic or eat them by the river at lunch time, I know I did.