For tomorrow’s office Christmas pot-luck. Just need to mix up the mustard dip, except I forgot to get the sour cream! :smack:
I foresee a quick detour to the grocery store en route to the office in the a.m.
Every time I see someone talking about scotch eggs, I always ask, but never get an answer…how do you peel the eggs without hard boiling them?
You do hard boil them.
I’ve sometimes seem them with a soft centre, but I always do a hard-boil.
No eggs for me, thanks, but I’ll gladly have Scotch. 
Hope you can get the sour cream tomorrow morning. And that you enjoy the pot-luck!
They’re out of the oven and cooling off. Scotch, eh? hmm, what should I do while they cool…
Oven? Heresy. A Scotch egg’s got to be deep fried.
This confused me too. I suppose it is done for “health” reasons…but it’s a freakin’ Scotch egg!
I think this is a case where “no true Scotsman” applies and isn’t a fallacy.
Deep fry or not at all!!!eleven1!!
Don’t have a deep fryer. Oven in high heat seems to do the job. They always all get eaten, with requests for more.
No need, as long as you have a pot and a bunch of oil. But I definitely understand not wanting to deep fry in the house. It does stink up the joint a bit. I deep fry in a pot over the gas grill on the deck outside. I know it kind of sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, but I haven’t had any issues and keeps the oil smell out of the house, which makes the other denizens of the house happy.
How about that. I’d heard of “scotch eggs” before but didn’t actually know what they were. Now I’ve googled it, and … MUST. TRY. NOW.
Okay, maybe not “now,” but soon. Definitely baked, seems like less of a hassle.
Tell me how you serve them … do you cut them in half and arrange them on a tray? You are making them a day in advance, so I assume you refrigerate them overnight, and then … ?
I’m puzzled as how I made it into my seventh decade without having ever encountered this treat. Well, it’s never too late to try a new recipe!
Mustard dip? Sounds interesting; can you describe how it’s made?
OK, I am of UK decent(Mom is from England) and I have never had a Scotch Egg despite hearing of them. I guess my Mom didn’t grow up making or eating them much.
Give me the essential/basic recipe and I might try to make them over my Xmas break. I don’t need anything super complicated, just the “back of the box” type recipe that is very common.
Anyone?
Sour cream?
Check.
Mustard?
Check?
Rest of the recipe?
…
I have a British style pub within easy travel distance of me that does an absolutely lovely Scotch egg so I can have one whenever I like without having to mess about making them. They’re served with fresh fried potato chips and mustard and the place has about a kajillion different beers and ciders so there’s no lack of liquid accompaniment. If I’m real hungry I can get a Scotch egg as an appetizer for the fish and chips they also do really well. I love that place.
here’s the recipe I use, from one of Jean Paré’s books.
One modification is that I use medium size eggs, not large.
For the mustard sauce, I play around a lot with the mustard, add onion flakes, etc. Depends how much zip you want in the sauce.
As outlined above, I don’t deep fry them. Don’t have a deep fryer and i’m way too much of a klutz to try deep frying in hot oil over an open flame on my grill ! :eek:
I suppose pan frying is an option, but i’m content with baking at 425 F. Target audience seems to be okay with that - they all disappeared at the potluck today.
When serving at a potluck, I usually cut them in half. A complete one is very filling, plus there’s the “what the heck?” reaction to whole ones from those not familiar with the concept. That’s also why I use hard-boiled, not soft-boiled.
Just by coincidence, one of the recent articles on the main page of Wikipedia was a biography of Maria Rundell, an Englishwoman who wrote a very popular cookery book in the late 18th - early 19th century. Her book is the first recorded recipe for Scotch eggs. She recommends including ham or anchovies in the covering, pan-frying, and serving with a good gravy, which makes it sound more like a supper dish than a hand-held pub grub.
The normal way to do it is in a Dutch oven or wok or similar pot on the stove. (This is how I grew up with deep fried foods. Nobody in my family ever used a dedicated deep fryer.) I was just sharing my idiosyncratic manner. But if you’re a klutz, definitely don’t do it on the stove – if something goes wrong there, you’ve got more to lose.
Yes, once they had cooled a bit, I put them in the fridge overnight. Took them to the office and put them in the fridge until the afternoon potluck. Given the combination of meat and eggs, I wouldn’t leave them sitting out except for the eating stage.
Cut them in halve and serve on a platter, with the dipping sauce right beside.
Just thought of one other variant on the recipe. It calls for eight large eggs. I find by using medium, i can get 10.
When making the sauvage covering, I squeeze the meat of all the sausages out of the casings into a bowl, then squoosh it altogether. Then put it in a flat surface (counter or flat stovetop) and press it all out in a layer. I use a spatula and a flat-end wooden spoon to divide it up into eight or ten squares (I don’t use a knife cause I don’t want to scratch the surface).
Then wrap an egg in one of the squares, squeezing and smoothing until the egg is covered. (PEEL THE EGG FIRST!). Then the assembly line of floor, beaten egg, and bread crumbs. Could also substitute fine-cut oats for true Scotchiness, I suppose.
Then my heretical baking at 425 for 20 minutes.
To peel the eggs easily, once they’ve boiled (about 15 minutes, starting from cold water to boiling), I put them into a bowl of cold water with ice cubes, then peel as soon as they’re cool. That makes the shells come off easily.
Hmm - the link to the recipe doesn’t work. Probably something about Google books.
Just google: “Jean Paré Scotch eggs” and it should pop up in your browser.