A few months ago, I mentioned being interested in attempting to make Scotch Eggs. Today, I decided to actually do it. It took me most of the morning to get around to peeling the eggs, which is probably the part that took the longest. I hard-boiled 7 eggs, because that’s how many there were in the carton. I know you’re supposed to soft-boil them, but I don’t like soft-boiled eggs, and the odds are pretty good that I’m the only one who will be eating these.
So, the breading process was actually kind of fun. I did the sausage-wrapping (Significantly simpler if you roll the egg in flour before you attempt this step, by the way…) and showed Olin how to do the breading part. He got dirty and got to “help”, and was very pleased. AJ did one of the last ones because he wandered up and decided he’d been left out, but he lost interest pretty quickly. I only did five because I didn’t have enough sausage for any more (I only bought a pound – I expected this to be a small experiment.)
The problem came in the frying step. I’ve never intentionally fried something in oil in a pan, rather than a temperature-controlled vat of some size. So, I wasn’t sure what temperature my oil needed to be. I know fried chicken needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees, but not how hot the oil was supposed to be. And I had a candy thermometer, but nothing else really to gauge…. So I punted.
Those were in there all of about 20 seconds. I haven’t tried to open them, I’m kind of afraid there might be a Scottish dragonet inside. Also, it took 20 minutes to clear the smoke out of the house. (I set off both smoke detectors – I’ve got mad skillz…) Then, another 10 minutes to calm the kids down after the fifteen-second grease fire that lit itself off the burner when I tried to rescue my charcoal balls.
I still had two left, so I turned the burner off for awhile and – once the smoke cleared – cooked them at a much lower temperature, one-at-a-time, and turned them constantly. Still only had them in there for maybe 30 seconds, though. Not enough to cook the sausage through.
After that, I put all 5 of them (just in case they were amazing and worth eating even when “burnt smack up”) in the oven for about 10 minutes to cook the sausage a little more thoroughly.
Whole Scotch eggs are rather suspicious-looking, in my opinion. They’re much more inviting after they’ve been sliced, and the one I opened seems to have turned out pretty well. It looks pretty with a little macro focus, anyway.
They tasted pretty good, with a little honey mustard. Most of the flavor comes from the condiment, though, truth be told. There’s only so much you can do to help a whole hard-boiled egg. I used Italian sausage and breadcrumbs, which lent it a little more character, but I was not overly impressed. Certainly not impressed enough to go through the hassle of making them again.
So! I do believe I’ve gotten that bug out of my bonnet.