But I've always liked foods inside of foods (e.g. shumai, vareniki, stuffed anything), so making Scotch eggs was a no-brainer for me.
I've also made sausage, so I take the raw meat and make sausage with it. (Which involves cold, salt, spices, and lots of squishing with hands. If your fingers don't ache from cold, you're not doing it right.)
Pork is traditional and makes good sausage. Chicken is too sticky to handle easily. I've done pork+turkey, and it was good. Beef by itself is too rough for nice sausage unless ground finer than you'll normally find. This time I used 1.3 lb beef + 1 lb turkey. It turned out really good.
Per kilogram of ground meat:
1.8 g salt
2 g black pepper
10 g sweet paprika
1 large garlic bud, minced very fine (7 grams)
2 large scallions, minced very fine
10 eggs (You'll use the best 8; allows for 2 imperfect eggs)
2 more eggs, beaten, to coat the Scotch eggs prior to bread crumbs
Small amount of olive oil to mix into meat
As needed:
Flour
Breadcrumbs
Generic vegetable oil
Mix the spices and olive oil into the very cold ground meat. Squish until it becomes sausage (i.e. when it becomes sticky and shiny). Return the meat to the freezer periodically to ensure it remains very cold.
Separate into 8 equal weight balls (use a scale), and refrigerate.
Soft-boil the 10 eggs in small groups, four minutes each, and put them into ice water to cool. When done, remove the shells. - carefully.
Pre-heat oven to 450°F (232°C). Ideally with convection, if you have a convection oven.
Flatten the meat balls into thin patties. Flour the eggs, and form the patties around them. When all the "pregnant" balls are made, sequentially dip them in egg wash, then coat with bread crumbs.
Then dip the bottoms in oil. Place on baking sheet, or roasting pan. Paint the tops and sides with oil. (The use of oil is because I'm not frying, so this adds a bit of crispness.)
Bake at 450°F (232°C) for 25 minutes.
The two extra eggs, possibly damaged while peeling, are for dogs. Because the aroma of meat and eggs has been torturing them for an hour!
Enjoy!
Scotch egg construction station:
