Scotch Eggs for a Special Picnic – My Recipe

My best friend’s fiance is currently on tour in Afghanistan, and while back for a couple of weeks for much needed R&R, one of his requests was for a big picnic, with his family and close friends. The venue was The Long Walk in Windsor, and the theme was typical traditional picnic fayre. I found […]

My best friend’s fiance is currently on tour in Afghanistan, and while back for a couple of weeks for much needed R&R, one of his requests was for a big picnic, with his family and close friends. The venue was The Long Walk in Windsor, and the theme was typical traditional picnic fayre. I found out there would be a ham, Melton Mowbray pork pie, salmon terrine and game pie so my contribution had to be the all time picnic favourite – Scotch Eggs! In this blog I will share my low effort, maximum taste recipe to make golden, crispy black pudding scotched quails eggs.

Sourcing the Ingredients

Scotch eggs can be rather filling, so I thought quails eggs would be the perfect size for this picnic. Luckily my lovely local butcher had one packet of Hampshire quails eggs left, I couldn’t resist some duck eggs either… and then my rather annoying tendency to over provide kicked in and I picked up some chicken eggs too. Now for the meat. They had 1 kg of their sausage meat, which is mildly seasoned and really tasty. I also requested a chunk of black pudding and was offered the choice of Scottish or Irish, I went for Scottish (Captain Jackson is in a Scottish regiment and thought he would appreciate it). I also didn’t think the sausage meat would go far enough for my range of eggs, so bought some of their ‘Katherine of Tarragon’ sausages too (it’s a Hampton Court butcher).

The Recipe 

Breadcrumbs – Approx 2 handfuls

Sausage Meat –  500 gm

Black Pudding –  100 gm

1 Beaten egg

12 Quails Eggs (room temperature)

Vegetable Oil for deep-frying

Method

1. Bring a small saucepan of water to the boil and gently lower the quails eggs into the water. Boil for 2 – 2 1/2 minutes and quickly remove from heat and plunge into cold water. I tend to let the cold tap run into the saucepan for a few minutes to help cool the eggs down.

2. In a food processor place your piece of black pudding and pulse to break up black pudding.

3. Add sausage meat to food processor and blend until black pudding is easily distributed throughout the sausage meat. It should become a deep, almost purple colour.

4. Place your bread crumbs into a shallow, wide bowl.

5. Place your beaten egg into another similarly shallow, wide bowl.

6. Carefully peel the quails eggs, ensuring that all shell is cleared from the egg.

7. Your sausage meat and black pudding mixture needs to be shared among the 12 eggs – depending on how good your eye is on determining size you can either estimate or weigh out the balls into 50 gm portions.

8. On your hand,  flatten out the ball of sausage into a long oval shape, place your egg in the centre and gently wrap the meat around the egg. Try to avoid any air pockets between the egg and meat, seal up any holes and to make the ball as round as possible.

9. Dip the meat ball into the egg, drain off excess and roll into the bread crumbs. Repeat once for a crisp, substantial coating.

10. Deep fry the scotch eggs for approx 5/6 minutes at 160°, drain and soak up excess oil with kitchen paper.

11. Eat as soon as possible – there is nothing better than a hot scotch egg!

Variations

There are so many different ways of making your own Scotch Eggs – I tried the tarragon sausage meat (just squeeze the meat out of the skins) with chicken eggs, which was really tasty and I managed to time the eggs to a perfect soft yolk. I also encased the duck eggs in the remainder of the sausage meat, keeping it plain to be able to taste the richness of the duck egg. Unfortunately I didn’t get to taste but I was told they were delicious!

Making Scotch Eggs – In Pictures

I’m afraid my hands were too messy at this stage to take any pictures!

The Scotch eggs went down a treat at the picnic – although I wish I’d taken the eggs off the boil just a few seconds earlier for a softer yolk!

My best friend Lucy’s mum, Mrs Warwick, was also at the picnic and made dessert… the most amazing chocolate chunk cookies and beautiful could like meringues with a perfect chewy centre.

Please do let me know if you try my recipe!