Scotch Eggs

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We have a local restaurant that has all sorts of weird foods, considering this is Oklahoma, Beef Country. Callaghan’s menu has a Scottish flair and is full of things like Hummus, Shephards Pie, Doner Kebab, and of course–Scotch Eggs. Unfortunately, Callaghan’s is over 21 only, and since its a rare occasion for us to be without the herd of mini-me’s, my Scotch Egg obsession had to be dealt with at home.  I mean, how hard can it be anyway? Just wrap some meat around a hard-boiled egg, bread it and cook it right?  Well…kindof.

The egg part is correct, but you have options: hard or soft boil that egg. I chose to hard boil the egg.  I can get 5 complete Scotch eggs from 1 # of ground pork, so hard boil 5 eggs of any size. I tend to use large or xlarge eggs, whatever is cheaper at the commissary on our local AF base.

Once you hard boil the eggs, be sure to stop the cooking process with an ice bath, and pop them in the fridge. Once they are cool, peel them.  While you are waiting, go ahead and start getting everything else prepared.  This is where it gets tricky b/c I’m a ‘dumper’ rather than a precise measurer (did you know measurer isn’t a real word?! That’s ok, I’m not above making up my own words). For this, I gave measuring an good effort, just for this occasion.

Grab your 1# package of pig, either ground pork or breakfast sausage.  If you use breakfast sausage, like Jimmy Dean in the tube, then little seasoning to no is needed.  Our family prefers the Jimmy Dean’s hot sausage. BUT for this batch the meat department had ground pork on sale so I grabbed it for $1.40.  When using ground pork, I add salt, pepper, cayenne and red pepper flakes. Mix it all up and then get ready to be wrist deep in pork, egg and flour..

Scotch Egg assembly line, ready for rolling!

For your assembly line you need your naked eggs, bowl of pork, flour, egg-milk mixture, and bread crumbs. Now you can use bread crumbs or panko, but I prefer Italian seasoned bread crumbs.  Here’s the order:
1. roll the naked egg in flour
2. Wrap in sausage (cover your palm with sausage, and wrap it around the egg, adding more if you need. You want it to be about a 1/4″ thick or more. Wet you hand to keep it from sticking)
3. Roll the sausage wrapped egg in flour
4. Then roll in the egg-milk mix
5. Finally, coat with bread crumbs.
They should look like this
At this point you are going to fry that egg in oil. We just drop it in our Fry-Daddy until it’s golden brown. DON’T BURN THE BREAD CRUMBS. If you do, you’ve just put yourself wrist deep in slimy sausage for nothing!

Pull them out and roll on a paper towel to soak up the extra grease, and then put them on a cookie sheet to bake. I put a rack on the sheet first to keep the ball crisp as it bakes.  Like this!
Bake for approximately 10-15 minutes at 350 F, or until the sausage is cooked through.

We love Scotch eggs in this house! Even the 4 yr old diva will eat it, and she often says she doesn’t eat meat.   Our 13 yr old boy will pack them in his lunch box and take to school. And we will eat them for dinner, with dinner, as a snack, or breakfast. 😉

Recipe:
5 hard (or soft) boiled eggs
1# ground pork
1/2 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp pepper
cayenne & red pepper flakes to taste
2 eggs, beaten
1 c milk
1-1 1/2 c flour
1 – 1 1/2 c breadcrumbs (I use Italian)

Hard boil your eggs, cool and peel.  Combine egg and milk in one bowl, place flour in a second bowl, and bread crumbs in a third.  In your fourth bowl, mix your pork and seasonings.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Roll the eggs in flour, then cover in sausage so that you don’t see any egg (you want it to be around 1/4″ thick on all sides). Remember to wet your hands to keep the sausage from sticking. Roll the sausage covered egg in flour, then coat in the egg wash, and finally roll in bread crumbs.

Heat oil in a skillet or deep fryer and fry the covered egg until golden brown, then drain and place on a cookie sheet with a rack fitted inside.  Repeat until they are all fried golden brown.

Bake 10-15 min (depending on the thickness of your meat) until cooked through.  Allow to cool.  You can serve with your favorite dipping sauce, or plain, like we do.