Scotch Eggs - Champ Style

As I have been working every Saturday since my last post, Sorry to my 5 followers that it has been so long since I have done a post. Since my last post,  I have tried the scotch eggs from The Old Dairy which are the 2nd best I have had next to The Bull and Last. All the research I did to find the best scotch eggs in London inspired me to take it up a notch. Try making them myself. Well, as you will see over the next couple paragraphs, I was somewhat successful. I would say 63% to be exact. Most importantly, I learned a couple valuable scotch egg lessons along the way. First off, my personal taste in scotch eggs is to have the great crispy exterior, really well seasoned meat, and an ooey gooey interior egg yolk. If I was taking them with me on a hike, or a picnic, I would probably want a more cooked egg than you will see. After some exhausting research (which I refreshed with a Balvenie 12, as I am also currently having), I decided to go with Heston Blumenthal's scotch egg recipe. I am not going to decifer the recipe step by step on this blog, because I am far too lazy to do that, but you can find the link here. To paraphrase, here are the ingredients.

In case you were wondering, the one thing I changed from the recipe, for all the hippies out there and my wife, I made them gluten free. The first and really the most annoying, time consuming, and purely lame part of this process was doing the eggs. Since I wanted a nice runny yolk, I had to soft boil the eggs just long enough to to be able to peel them. I nailed the cooking time on the eggs, but 45 minutes later, I had 5 of the 8 eggs I boiled peeled, with 3 in the garbage. If you have never peeled a soft boiled egg, give it a shot and for the love of god, please give me tips.

So once I finally prepped the eggs, I made the sausage mixture, and made my first mistake. I followed the recipe, which called for pork mince, and some seasonings. Unfortunately, it didn't add any kind of fat into the pork, which ended up giving me a bland, dry end product, which was definitely -20% on the final score. Luckily I did add an egg so the mixture kind of bound together. You will see a piece of cling film on the counter under the sausage. If you try making scotch eggs, please use this method, it really made wrapping them up really easy, or at least easier than not doing it this was, especially with really soft eggs.

And now the fun part.

After setting up the assembly line of flour, egg, and bread crumbs, you deep fry the eggs for a couple minutes, then place them in a preheated oven for 10 mins to finish off. Some recipes just ask for all deep fry, but I classed it up a bit. Here is the final result.

So moral of the story, I will be a pro scotch egger by the time I get back to Vancouver. Mistakes that I am going to learn from.
      1. Make a better sausage mixture, or buy sausages and use that meat. Next time I will try black pudding ones as well.
      2. I am going to boil the eggs just a minute or so longer than the recipe just to help with the peeling process, but not too long to petrify the yolk.
      3. Buy a rack for the oven. When I moved the eggs from deep fry to the bake part,  I had to cook them on a baking sheet, which made the very bottom go a touch soggy from the oil build up. The rack will prevent that.

Once I perfect these last few things, my that will be my ticket out of visual effects. Well....maybe just a side gig on weekends. Watch out farmers market, Champ's Juicy Eggs will be coming your way.
Please leave your comments and happy eating!

British Food 101 - Scotch Eggs

So, apparently, as explained by a few friends of mine who come from or resided in London and by the general stereotype, British food is bland and boring. A recount of my first British food experience. My friend Mark told me the first thing I need to do at Heathrow is march into M&S, and have a scotch egg. I like food, and trying new things, so that is exactly what I did.

Honestly, it was pretty gross. The egg was really really hard boiled, the sausage was ok, but the outer crust was moist and chewy. Granted, it was probably on the shelf for a week, and if it wasn't please PLEASE, don't judge scotch eggs from M&S or any supermarket.

What is a scotch egg? A scotch egg is consists of a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. I know, sounds amazing. Well, guess what? When they are made fresh, they really can be some of the finest of British cuisine.

Black Pudding Scotch Egg

Some of the best scotch eggs that I have devoured are from EAT MY PIES at Broadway market. They usually have a choice of about 8 different eggs ranging from a traditional pork sausage to more adventurous flavours such as Red Thai curry pork, Haggis and my personal favourite, Black Pudding. At the market, they slice them open, sprinkle with cracked pepper and salt, and down the hatch.

My favourite scotch egg thus far must be from The Bull and Last.  This place is my favourite pub in London, the food is amazing (and will have its own blog entry at some point), and they make the best scotch eggs ever. When I make a reservation here, I always order scotch eggs over the phone. They use great tasting pork, and when they half it and serve it to you with some Coleman's mustard, the yolk is nice and runny for an ultimate flavour explosion.

Note: Just to see if anyone really reads this thing, and for anybody interested. This Sunday I will be donning my apron and taking a crack(hopefully not the egg) at homemade scotch eggs. I will start basic with pork sausage most likely, but once I perfect it, you will want to come around for breakfast! Stay tuned for the results.

There you have it. Scotch eggs = nomnomnom. If you have a favourite in London, please let me know, and I will go there and compare to my findings. Please leave your comments and happy eating!