Scotch Egg Recipe
Is it hard find some tasty meal on the go? Pack the mealbox with ground meat coated scotch egg and enjoy a tasty meal even without knife and fork!
If tales live to be true, soon humanity is embarking on an epic journey that will lead our species being a multiplanetary organism. Or at least as we know it. There are theories that life was brought to Earth by a meteorite. There is another version regarding this subject in the Bible, but we explore the scientific option now as the spiritual story-line would ruin our point.
At the end, just suddenly being here and born out of dust and some form of bones, doesn’t sound as exciting as having a journey through unimaginable distance through danger and decay. Afterall space is not really a homey environment for humans or for any other living organism as far as we know.
First of all, there is no food there. If we want to embark on an epic journey, we can’t really hibernate ourselves like germs in a big block of ice. There is deadly radiation and uncomfortable cold there for sure, but those aren’t that excruciating as weeks long suffering from hunger.
It was figured out long ago that we need food to be carried with us or places where we can pick them up from. But actually, it wasn’t that long ago when we realized that though some food keeps us going, it doesn’t keep us alive on the long run.
This inconvenient fact haunted many voyages across the Atlantic and still does those who find eating green things destined only to beings providing milk. Some time ago the junk food industry could claim a place here but since they are pumping up their highly processed food with added vitamins to be edible, they are off the hook.
Since multivitamins popped up around the shops, even those can survive quite a long time who pretend to be on an interstellar journey on the spaceship called Earth, without anything else but bread and French fries.
As sad as it seems, adventures are not about healthy life. Adventures are about pain, agony, stress, possible early death and apparently crappy food. Even small journey on our personal spaceship is a struggle for those who have certain expectation toward what they eat.
It seems that even though we don’t die of hunger on the short run if we want to adhere to our life, we have to pack up our food like hobbits and get through the sugary land of Mordor with or without hope.
Well, maybe describing a trip to the seaside as a hopeless journey is a bit of a stretch, but we still have to prepare our food for it. Especially if we are the type that gets bored in a car after 30 minutes of staring out of the window.
Probably, there are plenty of veggies that can be boxed in for such occasions, but small selection we have for protein that can be comfortably munched on without using fancy knife and fork.
We could reach back to decades old food preservation methods and smoke or salt meat to be ready for our journey. We may also buy these, given that it’s available like Spanish Jamon Serrano or Chorizo but the rest of us must solve this problem on our own without spending month on drying the meat in cold dry air.
Nothing beats frying stuff in hot oil in speed, but even getting them ready in the oven takes way less time than Serrano ham, not to mention less oily.
Probably, our easiest choice would be to make plain meatballs, but if we fancy stealing a little excitement into them we could, by filling them with hard boiled eggs thus making scotch eggs.
Scotch eggs has as much to do with Scotland and the Scottish as the Scotland Yard has, absolutely nothing but this is the way we name recipes, so we must live with it.
Scottish eggs are originally breaded but luckily there won’t be anybody who prosecutes us if we just don’t roll our meatballs in gluten. Both, the fried and baked version will turn out perfectly without adding extra calories to them so fear not taking the plunge either way.
Scottish eggs are a lovely meal that would provide us the necessary and tasty proteins for our long journeys far from home, be it around the sun or just at the other one end of our daily commute.
Ingredients
- 9 medium / 450g Eggs
- 1⅓ lb / 600g Ground meat
- 2 teaspoons / 10g Salt
- Optional but recommended
- 1 teaspoon / 3g Black pepper
- 1 teaspoon / 2g Paprika or Cayenne if hot spices desired
- 1 tablespoon / 10g Chives
- 3 tablespoons / 50g Caramelized onion (Check out: Caramelized Onion Recipe)
- 3 tablespoon / 30g Parmesan (shredded)
- Optional
- 1 teaspoon / 5g Dijon mustard
- 1 medium / 140g Apple instead of onion (shredded)
- 1 teaspoon / 2.5g Nutmeg
- Traditionally optional breadcrumb coating
- 1 cup / 120g Flour
- 1 cup / 150g Breadcrumb
- 4 medium / 200g Eggs
How to make Scotch egg
- Depending on where exactly we would like to eat our scotch eggs, we can decide what type of yolk we’d like to have. If we plan to have them on the go runny yolks aren’t really recommended. Boil the eggs as desired. 15 minutes in gently boiling water generally enough the get a nice firm yolk. If the eggs are fresh, add a half teaspoon of baking soda to the boiling water as that helps peeling of the shells of fresh eggs.
- If we want to add caramelized onion to the meat coating, it’s a good time saving idea to start them with the eggs. Check out: how to make caramelized onion.
- Peel the eggs and let them cool down.
- While the eggs are cooking and cooling, prepare the meat. In a bowl mix the meat with salt, pepper, paprika, chives and caramelized onion. The original scotch egg recipe only calls for salt and pepper but these are really lovely additions to the meat.
- Also we can add a bit of Parmesan that will provide a bit more strength to the coating as well as flavors.
- Mix everything together well.
- Form balls out of the meat about the size of the eggs. Maybe a bit bigger.
- Flatten out the balls. Coating our hands with oil may prevent the meat sticking to it.
- Roll the eggs up into the meat.
- Close the gaps up.
- Try to even the coating by gently tossing the egged meatballs from one hand to the other.
- Repeat until we have a batch ready for frying or baking.
- Heat oil in a frying pan to medium heat and place the scotch eggs in there. Fry one side for until it gets a golden brown – dark color for about 5 – 10 minutes. If we are after runny yolk, heat the oil to high temperatures and fry the balls shorter periods of time otherwise the yolks could be cooked hard before the meat is done.
- Flip them over and cook the other side too.
- When both sides get the desired color take them out and let them drip off oil.
Also we can add a bit of Parmesan that will provide a bit more strength to the coating as well as flavors.
Traditionally optional breadcrumb coating:
- Original scotch eggs are coated with breadcrumbs but this is not necessary nor keto. However for the sake of tradition here it is. Roll the balls into flour until all the sides are covered.
- Roll them in beaten up eggs until all the sides are covered.
- Roll them in breadcrumbs until all the sides are covered.
- When a batch is ready fry them in hot oil just like the scotch eggs without breadcrumbs taking care of the yolk if it’s necessary.
- When one side gets a golden brown color in about 5 – 10 minutes flip them over and fry the other side too.
- When both sides are done, take them out and let the oil drip off.
- Pro anti-keto tip. Leftover breadcrumb, flour and eggs should not be discarded but mixed together with a bit of water and fried the same way as the scotch eggs.
- It’s not the healthiest thing but why waste the crumbs, right?
Enjoy!
Note: Scotch eggs can be made in the oven just like meatballs however expecting runny eggs and golden brown color may going to be a bit too much.
Scotch Egg Recipe
Ingredients
- 9 medium Eggs
- 1⅓ lb Ground meat
- 2 teaspoons Salt
Optional but recommended
- 1 teaspoon Black pepper
- 1 teaspoon Paprika or Cayenne if hot spices desired
- 1 tablespoon Chives
- 3 tablespoons Caramelized onion Check out: Caramelized Onion Recipe
- 3 tablespoons Parmesan shredded
Optional
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 medium Apple instead of onion shredded
- 1 teaspoon Nutmeg
Traditionally optional breadcrumb coating:
- 1 cup Flour
- 1 cup Breadcrumb
- 4 medium Eggs
Instructions
- Depending on where exactly we would like to eat our scotch eggs, we can decide what type of yolk we'd like to have. If we plan to have them on the go runny yolks aren't really recommended. Boil the eggs as desired. 15 minutes in gently boiling water generally enough the get a nice firm yolk. If the eggs are fresh, add a half teaspoon of baking soda to the boiling water as that helps peeling of the shells of fresh eggs.
- If we want to add caramelized onion to the meat coating, it's a good time saving idea to start them with the eggs. Check out: how to make caramelized onion.
- Peel the eggs and let them cool down.
- While the eggs are cooking and cooling, prepare the meat. In a bowl mix the meat with salt, pepper, paprika, chives and caramelized onion. The original scotch egg recipe only calls for salt and pepper but these are really lovely additions to the meat.
- Also we can add a bit of Parmesan that will provide a bit more strength to the coating as well as flavors.
- Mix everything together well.
- Form balls out of the meat about the size of the eggs. Maybe a bit bigger.
- Flatten out the balls. Coating our hands with oil may prevent the meat sticking to it.
- Roll the eggs up into the meat.
- Close the gaps up.
- Try to even the coating by gently tossing the egged meatballs from one hand to the other.
- Repeat until we have a batch ready for frying or baking.
- Heat oil in a frying pan to medium heat and place the scotch eggs in there. Fry one side for until it gets a golden brown - dark color for about 5 - 10 minutes. If we are after runny yolk, heat the oil to high temperatures and fry the balls shorter periods of time otherwise the yolks could be cooked hard before the meat is done.
- Flip them over and cook the other side too.
- When both sides get the desired color take them out and let them drip off oil.
Traditionally optional breadcrumb coating
- Original scotch eggs are coated with breadcrumbs but this is not necessary nor keto. However for the sake of tradition here it is. Roll the balls into flour until all the sides are covered.
- Roll them in beaten up eggs until all the sides are covered.
- Roll them in breadcrumbs until all the sides are covered.
- When a batch is ready fry them in hot oil just like the scotch eggs without breadcrumbs taking care of the yolk if it's necessary.
- When one side gets a golden brown color in about 5 - 10 minutes flip them over and fry the other side too.
- When both sides are done, take them out and let the oil drip off.
- Pro anti-keto tip. Leftover breadcrumb, flour and eggs should not be discarded but mixed together with a bit of water and fried the same way as the scotch eggs.
- It's not the healthiest thing but why waste the crumbs, right?
