Scotch Eggs

As I publish this post I am very aware that anyone who knows me well…. Or has just had the pleasure of eating breakfast with me, will be staring at the screen with a dumbfounded look on their face.

Their thoughts might be going something along the lines of…. “Jodie… Made what?” “Scotch eggs?” “But she doesn’t like eggs!”

Yeah, you read that right. I don’t like eggs. Well, that’s not strictly correct. I have always eaten scrambled eggs or an omelette if they were extremely well cooked. But the thought of a googy-egg served up that still looked like an egg was enough to put me off. Something about the tastes and textures of the individual parts…. *Shudder*

Anyway about 6 moths ago we (my husband and I) were sitting on the lounge one night and I turned to him and asked whether he thought it would be possible to force myself to eat (and eventually enjoy) eggs. After telling me that that was a very random question he gave me some sort of non-committal answer.

I decided I was going to give it a go though because it is extremely annoying to go out for breakfast and be limited to just a couple of non-egg options. I started with a fried egg (pretty well fried beyond recognition) on a blt so that it was mostly hidden from view when I ate it (yeah I know… Weird). Success! From there I moved on to a chopped up hard boiled egg in a Caesar salad… Success!

I still have a long way to go to be able to say that I enjoy eating all eggs. I haven’t even tried them on their own yet…. And poached eggs still freak me out. But that’s ok. I’m getting there. I can say for instance, that I absolutely LOVE scotch eggs! These are going to become a regular for my menu plan.

I need to admit at this point that I did alter the recipe for these that I got from Grandma. Her recipe is the traditional version where you deep fry them. I decided I didn’t want to do it that way for a couple reasons. Firstly because deep frying is so bad for you and I have enough trouble with my weight, I don’t need to add deep fried meals to the picture. But also because I could see that it might be a little tricky to fry the eggs long enough that you cook the sausage but not burn the crumbed outside.

The solution to this little problem….. Bake them! So that’s what I did and they were perfect.

I served the scotch eggs with smashed potatoes, beans and sweet chilli sauce. So tasty. They would also be great with a salad or just as a picnic snack.

To make these delightful little eggs, you firstly need to hardboil the eggs. Place the eggs in a pot of cold water and place on high heat. Make sure the eggs are fully covered with water. Once the water comes to the boil, let the eggs cook for another 6 minutes.

Once the eggs are cooked, remove them from the pot and place in a bowl of cold water, leave for a few minutes before removing the shells.

Next you need to remove the skins from the sausages (of course you can do this while the eggs are cooking). First soak the sausages in cold water for about 5 minutes. Then get a knife and slit the skin and pull it away from the meat. You will need one sausage for every egg. It’s also important to try and use the best quality sausages you can, as they are one of the main ingredients and give a lot of the flavour. I used beef sausages from our favourite butcher.

Next, set up a production line with your eggs and sausages, a bowl with some milk, another bowl with some breadcrumbs and a lined tray to put the completed eggs on. Flatten out one of the sausages and place the egg in the middle. Then bring the sausage meat around the egg being careful to completely cover the egg and join the meat properly.

Once you have a sausage covered egg, dip it in the milk and roll it around so it’s all covered and then do the same in the breadcrumbs.

Sit your little creation on the tray and repeat until all the eggs and sausages are used.

Spray the eggs with a little cooking spray, then put them into the preheated oven for about 30 minutes, turning them a couple times.

If you would like the eggs to have a more browned crust, then you can fry them off on all sides in a hot frypan with a little bit of oil in it, otherwise enjoy them straight out of the oven.

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