Runny Scotch Eggs

Once again, Tom and I are obsessing about English food as we count down the days until we are home to Blighty. I remember when I first became vegetarian aged 12, I found it difficult to adjust. I was always looking for snacks I could eat. A healthy egg snack seemed like a good idea so I ate one of the mini Scotch eggs you can buy at the supermarket only to be reminded it was made from sausage meat. What a wally! I have since refined my snack search aged 26 and so I left this adventure to Tom.

So, we challenged ourselves to one of Heston Blumenthal's scientific recipes and the result was the perfect runny Scotch egg. Heston is a celebrity chef in the UK. He basically tries to perfect traditional dishes using laboratory precision. The key to making the perfect Scotch egg is to make sure the eggs remain runny, while the sausage coating is allowed to become crispy. Heston cooks the eggs for only three minutes in boiled water off the heat and they are then thrust into ice water to make sure they stay only 3minute eggs! This makes the eggs very difficult to peel, and of course Heston makes it look easy!

Scotch egg preparation

Wrapping a delicate runny boiled egg in sausage meat.

He then wraps the eggs in the sausage meat mixture using clingfilm so as to ensure complete smooth coverage. A flour dusting is coated on the meat and then each egg is deep fried at a precise temperature for 2 minutes.  This ensure the coating is crispy but the meat and egg remain cool.
The eggs are then baked for ten minutes to cook the sausage through without the heat reaching the runny yolk center.

Crispy coated Scotch eggs fresh from the oven.

The result is the perfect runny Scotch egg! They do look delicious, don't you think!
Magnificent work! We were very tentative towards the eggs and luckily they came out very well! I kind of wanted to nibble on one they looked so good.
Full recipe details here.

Runny Scotch eggs.