Snacking on Scotch Eggs

February 26, 2010 | Posted by Lorraine as Eggs, Snack Recipes at 8:37 pm | (1) Comment »

: Scotch Egg from Crestock High Quality Images

You already know how I feel about eggs. We go through about 60 eggs here a week. Okay, so a lot of that goes to my baking business- but we are egg lovers, and one of our favorite ways to have them are Scotched.

Take a hard-boiled egg, cover in ground sausage meat, and fry. Doesn’t sound that hard, does it? I didn’t think so either, until I actually tried making the little suckers- and it was, to quote Tim Gunn, a big hot mess. The meat slipped off the eggs, leaving me with naked hard-boiled eggs, fried with some ground sausage. Tasted good, though.

Then I found this recipe, which is from the BBC’s food section- which, scotch eggs being British, is where I should have looked in the first place. It worked like a dream.

Scotch Eggs
Source: BBC Food

4 large eggs
275g/10oz sausage meat
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 spring onion, very finely chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
125g/4oz plain flour, seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 egg, beaten
125g/4oz plain breadcrumbs (I like to use Panko- gives it that extra crunch)
vegetable oil, for deep frying

Place the eggs, still in their shells, in a pan of cold salted water. Place over a high heat and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to simmer for around 8 minutes. Drain and cool the eggs under cold running water, then peel.

Mix the sausage meat with the thyme, parsley and spring onion in a bowl and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper (Simon recommends being generous with the freshly ground black pepper). Divide the sausage meat mixture into four and flatten each out on a clean surface into ovals about 12.5cm/5in long and 7.5cm/3in at its widest point.

Place the seasoned flour onto a plate, then dredge each boiled egg in the flour. Place each onto a sausage meat oval, then wrap the sausage meat around each egg. Make sure the coating is smooth and completely covers each egg. Dip each sausage meat-coated egg in the beaten egg, rolling to coat completely, then dip and roll into the breadcrumbs to completely cover.

Heat the oil in a deep heavy-bottomed pan, until a breadcrumb sizzles and turns brown when dropped into it. (CAUTION: hot oil can be dangerous. Do not leave unattended.)

Carefully place each scotch egg into the hot oil and deep-fry for 8-10 minutes, until golden and crisp and the sausage meat is completely cooked. Carefully remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs

June 15, 2009 | Posted by Lorraine as Eggs at 1:17 pm | (1) Comment »

perfect-hbeggs

I’m a little embarrassed that it’s taken me this long to perfect the hard boiled egg. There’s the expression “she can’t even boil an egg”- but I promise you that before today, I have been able to boil an egg- just not a perfect one.

Before today, I tried everything. I added vinegar to the water to prevent the whites from oozing out of the cracks in the shells (and I always, always seemed to have cracked shells!) I added salt to the water to make it easier to peel them. I tried keeping the water on a low simmer before lowering the eggs in. And it was always a hit and miss- some eggs were better than others, some almost perfect… but I never had a day when all the eggs were perfectly hard-boiled, and easy to peel. Until today.

So here’s what I did: I placed the eggs in an unheated saucepan, covered them with cold water, put the saucepan on the stove and turned the heat on to medium-high. Then I waited.

As soon as it started boiling (and I’m talking a good, rolling boil here), I switched the heat off, set my kitchen timer to ten minutes, and went to check Facebook.

After ten minutes, I drained the eggs from the water, and dumped about two cups of ice on them. This gave them a good shock. After they were all nice and shocked and quite cool, I peeled them. When you peel them this way, they are perfect. The peel, membrane and all, comes right off- and you are left with perfectly boiled, shiny egg, with a very moist, creamy yolk within. You’re welcome.

Thank God for Eggs

February 17, 2009 | Posted by Lorraine as Eggs, Recipe at 10:20 am | (1) Comment »

Eggs, Glorious Eggs

My husband and I run two businesses from home, which means that we’re crazy busy almost all of the time. So busy, that sometimes we forget to stock the fridge, and suddenly it’s dinnertime, and we have almost nothing to cook.

I say almost nothing because there’s something we always have around here (necessary, when you run a baking business): eggs. Ah, eggs- they’ve been called nature’s most perfect food, and I know why. I mean, can you say versatile? Hard-boil them, slice them, season and mix in some mayonnaise, and you’ve got an awesome egg salad (or, as my French aunt likes to say, oeufs a la mayonnaise). Soft-boil them, slice off their tops, and serve with fleur de sel, and you’ve got a gourmet breakfast right there.

But tonight, I’m going even lazier, perhaps because I’ve got deadlines looming, an early-morning conference call, and not enough coffee in the house, and making some very simple, very awesome, scrambled eggs.

Now there’s a secret to making perfect scrambled eggs: be gentle with them. Stir them gently around the pan, don’t give them too much heat, and most importantly: never ever leave them alone.

Awesome Scrambled Eggs

For perfect Scrambled Eggs, all you need are:

4 Eggs, lightly whisked
4 tablespoons Unsalted Butter (use salted if it’s all you’ve got. I’m a bit of a control freak about salt, is all)
Salt & Pepper

Melt the butter over low-medium heat (you do not want it to brown). Add whisked eggs, and start mixing it around the pan, slowly, gently. Once it looks a little set- still creamy and moist- take it off the heat. Season with salt and pepper.

Served on toasted bread, this is a delicious meal for two that takes all of five minutes to make.

How do you like your eggs?