Vegetarian Scotch Egg Recipe
/These veggie Scotch eggs have been a big hit on the Fenland Roaster menu for some time. They are great for a buffet or picnic and work well as part of a main meal with vegetables, or with a salad and warm crusty bread and baked potatoes.
Serve them hot or cold - they taste great either way. Whenever we serve them these are always one of the first things to go. This recipe is for five eggs but they come out large, so you may find that you halve or even quarter them when serving.
Vegetarian Scotch Egg
Ingredients (quantities depend on how many Scotch eggs you are cooking)
· Eight eggs: one for the centre of each Scotch egg, plus extra for the vegetarian coating.
· Plain flour - a few tablespoons is enough to keep dipping your hands into.
· Breadcrumbs - about 1 tablespoon per egg. I use stale bread and put it through the blender to the required crumbiness, but you can also buy ready prepped.
· A 454g pack of Macsween Vegetarian Haggis. (Available from Tesco and elsewhere.)
Method
1. Hard boil five eggs. Do not over boil as this will cause the edge of the yoke to blacken inside the white. (Sometimes I boil one more egg than I need and remove this after a few minutes to see how ‘done’ the eggs are.)
2. Remove eggs from the pan and place immediately in cold running water until they feel cooled. This makes it easier to remove the shell. You can leave the eggs in the fridge overnight or for a few hours to ensure they are nice and firm ready for coating.
3. Put some flour in a bowl - you’ll use this to dip your hands into to stop the coating sticking to your hands.
4. Prepare a bowl with the breadcrumbs, and a separate bowl with three whisked eggs.
5. To prepare the coating, mix together the haggis, breadcrumbs and whisked egg. As a guide, add a tablespoon of breadcrumbs and a similar amount of whisked egg. You will see when it all bonds together nicely, so adjust quantities as required to achieve this.
6. Lay out a sheet of cling film approx. 15 inches (45cm) square.
7. Dip your hands in the flour, and then take a piece of the mixture about the size of a snooker ball or half the size of a tennis ball. Place this in the middle of the clingfilm and push it out to form a flat round patty about five inches in diameter.
8. Take an egg and place in the middle of the patty. Take the whole thing up with your hands on the outside of the cling film, forming the mixture all the way around the egg.
9. Once the ball is roughly formed, remove it from the cling film. With floured hands, keep working the ball to get a nice even coverage of haggis, and to make it quite firm.
10. Now coat the Scotch egg in whisked egg ensuring it is all covered. Then place it in the bowl of breadcrumbs and roll it around to get an even coating. To finish, give each Scotch egg another squeeze to make it nice and firm.
11. Deep fry the Scotch eggs in oil. Here are some tips for doing this successfully:
· I use a deep fryer set to 110°C, which is maximum heat. If you deep fry using oil in a saucepan, you might need to have the oil slightly less hot than you would do when frying chips. If the oil is too hot you will brown the outside before the haggis is cooked through.
· Place the eggs in the basket BEFORE lowering into the oil. Do not just drop them in as this will cause splashing of hot oil.
· I cook five at a time but of course it depends on the size of your basket - but allow enough space all around the Scotch eggs so they are not touching.
· Give the basket a gentle shake whilst cooking.
· To deep fry should take no longer than five minutes. You can check this by removing one and either probing the outer casing with a chef’s thermometer (70°C would be about right) or cutting one in half.
12. Either serve straight away or set aside to cool and refrigerate if you prefer them cold.
If you like the sound of these Scotch eggs at your next event, please contact us to find out more about our event catering available across Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire and beyond.
