Eggs recipe

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Welcome back to sunday morning in the old cookbook show um.

I'm not sure if I'm ready I'm

Not sure if i'm ready for this one yet i'm really not sure if i'm ready for this one yet this is a recipe that i did a lot of research on a couple months ago wrote up this whole thing was getting ready to do it and then sort of chickened out um we're going to start out i'm going to start out by boiling some eggs so here i've got some eggs these came from cousin jill's hens she sent us some white eggs some pretty blue eggs and some brown eggs so i've got a pot here and we're gonna boil these eggs the recipe we're making is scotch eggs and the reason i sort of didn't want to do them is there are some recipes.

I know people have a very strong opinion about and an emotional attachment to and if you sort of show them that what they believe today wasn't where the recipe started they get really upset and i thought this might be one of those recipes and so i have in front of me here a selection of some cookbooks that hold historical significance in the evolution of the scotch egg this one in particular this book and this is the actual book from 1807 is credited as the first cookbook to have a.

Scotch egg recipe in it I think in earlier printing um 1805 is the is the original printing it has the the recipe in it this is 1807 still has a Scotch egg recipe in it and it's the one we're going to do today so let me read the recipe to you. Scotch eggs boil hard boil hard I'm going to boil them hard that's the thing so first up 2023 you go on the Internet or you go on the TV and you listen to some TV chef or.

Internet cook tell you about Scotch eggs the perfect Scotch egg is a soft boiled egg in the middle and the yolk is supposed to be a little bit runny in the very first printed recipe boil hard so I'm going to hard boil mine um boil hard five pull its eggs I'm only doing two because it's just Julie and I home tonight and without removing the white cover completely with a fine relishing Force meat so Force meat in the context of this time period Force meat is sausage meat so you're looking at something fine relishing Force meat you're looking at something that has spices and all kinds of other things in it I'm going to use our homemade sausage and you can watch.

Julie and I make this Elsewhere on the channel in which let's scraped ham or chopped anchovy bear a do proportion now in the context of this of this cookbook scraped ham is chopped fresh pork meat not cured ham if they had wanted cured ham they would have said cured ham whereas today when we say ham we mean cured ham and if we want to have fresh pork leg we say fresh ham language changes over time up anchovy is quite interesting um it shows up in these later cookbooks as well fry a beautiful yellow brown and serve with a good gravy in the dish now today as well most recipes tell you to deep fry them and by the time you get to this cookbook the Scottish women's rural.

Institute cookery book from 1938 there's two recipes they're not called Scotch eggs they're called sausage eggs they don't use Scotch eggs one of them is pan fried and one of them is deep fried so these earlier recipe books are all pan fried not deep fried and also in these earlier recipes you're not coating it in breadcrumbs before you deep fry you're just frying it with the sausage meat on the outside this is this is 1829 um pretty much the same recipe pretty much the same recipe at this point 1829 you get to this one this is an so this was a Scottish cookbook as well this is Mrs Dodd's Scottish cookbook published in Edinburgh this is a Scottish cookbook this is an English cookbook and it has Scotch eggs by this point in 1902 you are putting egg and bread crumbs on the outside before you fry it there doesn't seem to be any sort of consensus on where this recipe starts it is telling somewhat telling that the first published recipe or what is believed to be the first published recipe appears in a Scottish cookbook so a scotch egg probably does appear first in Scotland um where the Crux of the idea comes from no one can really say also the name Scotch egg seems to be um something that people argue about. I think those eggs are done I'm going to get those out of the water so so far no one has been able to pinpoint the the sort of the the kernel of the idea of where this Scotch egg came from as to the name there's a whole bunch of theories the theories are never ending uh the word Scotch comes from an older word that means score some people take score to mean caught cut or chop or mince um and so because it's got the minced. Force meat around the outside obviously Scotch is a reference to that earlier meaning of the word um other people attribute it to a certain restaurant that was run by the.

Scots family that one is pretty much uh. No One Believes that anymore some people still believe that. Scholars no longer believe that the one that I'm going to get firmly behind is the one that I was able to research the most about and it's the idea that um Scotch eggs comes from an earlier type of Scotch egg that was a preserved egg and so my research I was able to pinpoint or the first time I was able to pinpoint the word Scotch egg turning up in print was from 1777 and that's up on the screen right now it is a mention in a newspaper from September 4th 1777 that the price of eggs had shot up because Bakers were unable to get Scotch eggs and they had to use fresh local eggs in their baking now there's no mention in this article what a scotch egg actually is in this time period but the fact that it says fresh egg we can sort of infer that they mean a preserved egg the next instance of Scotch egg that I'm able to find in newspapers.

And I spent a lot of time pouring through newspaper databases searching for this calling people emailing people trying to find these things and this research is is um flawed you know there's no other way to put it it's flawed it's definitely flawed because not everything is uh digitized and searchable there's lots of newspapers that haven't been digitized there's lots of these books that haven't been digitized aren't searchable there's lots of printed material that has been lost. Through Fire War destruction neglect and so we'll never really get a full picture but the next version that I'm able to find is from 1818 October 1818.

And this refers to a Coroner's inquest into the death of a child who drank from a cup that held oil vitriol now oil of vitriol that's hard for me to say oil of vitriol is actually sulfuric acid and it was used for a whole bunch of things but this family was accused of using it to clean the stains from Scotch eggs so that they could be sold as fresh um and certainly uh by this time period already I can see in this book from 1807 in the back there is a recipe for Scotch eggs same one that has the first printed recipe for what we're doing today Scotch eggs so it's got two Scotch egg recipes and the one further back I'm going to read the whole thing because I think it's hilarious to choose eggs at market and preserve them put the large egg of the egg to your tongue if it feels warm it is new well yeah of course it is you've never had a fresh laid egg it's warm it is warm it just came out of the chicken it's warm in new laid eggs there is a small division of the skin from the shell which is filled with air and is perceptible to the eye at the end uh looking through them against the Sun or a candle.

If fresh eggs will be pretty clear if they shake they are not fresh eggs may be bought cheapest when the hens first begin to lay in the spring before they sit in Lent and at Easter they become deer so in this time period chickens were roaming in the farmyard they weren't intensively farmed in warehouses they were subject to changing seasons and changing temperatures and so they're they're laying changed they may be preserved fresh by dipping them in boiling water and instantly taking them out or by oiling the shell either of which ways is to prevent the air passing through it or kept on shelves with small holes to receive one in each and be turned every other day or close packed in a keg and covered with strong lime water now uh. Julie and I used to live in the bush and we would wax eggs because they lasted longer so these. Scotch eggs are being preserved you can still use it as a fresh egg it's not a fresh egg but you crack it open and you use it in baking or cooking or something like that.

We Gather that they're stained from the earlier newspaper piece that talks about them taking the stains out with sulfuric acid and I see references in newspapers in the 1820s and the 1880s all the way through showing these preserved Scotch eggs being shipped around the world um and you can see them in ship manifests and Port manifests etc etc so I I firmly believe that it's called the Scotch egg because in its fried state it resembles the preserved Scotch egg the way that it was stained and possibly modeled foreign. I know that was a lot of talking a lot of talking for something that is essentially just a boiled egg with some sausage around the outside so um what it comes down to is you we're never going to figure out I don't think where this originated um and I don't think we're ever going to come down to know exactly why it's called a scotch egg but you know I firmly believe what I just said.

I've got the sausage meat um one of the things I see in a lot of. Scotch eggs is that the the sausage is too thick around the outside of the egg and I'm worried that I'm going to make it too thick but essentially you make. Patty you put your egg in and you wrap it around and if it takes you two or three tries to get it right that's okay just keep trying eventually you'll get it and I mean that's the first one I've ever made so okay so there you go two Scotch eggs take your time if you've never done this before I'd never done this before take your time don't get frustrated just take your time and do it and if it's your first time making something like this I would definitely say hard boil your eggs don't worry about soft boiling forget about all of the pressure to do it as a soft boiled egg take at take that stress out of your day hard boil them and then just get them covered in the sausage I'm going to stick these in the fridge for about an hour because Julie's not going to be home for a little while.

So I'll see you back here for the frying okay so I've got the oil hot here about 350 degrees Fahrenheit and go the eggs so 350 degrees Fahrenheit is a good starting temperature for your oil um the thicker your sausage layer the lower the temperature that you want to use it's counterintuitive and that's because you you want to cook the sausage all the way through before the exterior Browns or Burns so that lower temperature is going to get you there so maybe go down to 320.

it's covered in sausage I don't think you have to worry about it soaking up too much oil now because I am shallow pan frying these I'm going to keep turning them to make sure they cook evenly if you are deep fat frying them you don't have to do that you just make sure they're submerged in the oil okay. I'm gonna say we're done and I gotta tell you I hate deep frying or even shallow frying such amazing hey friends yes that is a mess everywhere okay well I guess you kindly uh use the shallow pan so everyone could see yes now my wrapping my wrapping wasn't you know it's not a one well you made two so and so if you've got a 50 50 chance on your skill here which well and that's so. I often see comments from people saying. I've got a big dinner this weekend I'm going to try this recipe and I think to myself no you're setting yourself up for disaster and yet no because you know what's the worst thing that happens well you know that's really is that really that bad no try a small amount first make your mistakes at home and then try to show off or with good friends or with good friends yes so we got one that's that looks pretty good and one that you know the the stuffing well it's not stuffing at the at that time the rapping the wrapping came off okay so I've never had a scotch egg you had to mentioned we were having.

Scotch eggs I've never had one either but on TV they're always breaded yes these are not breaded and often they're soft and gooey and gooey on the inside I never understand how that happens when they're deep fried um or how that like I feel like the egg would no matter what you did would finish cooking okay so the soft soft boiled egg the the thing is you chill it in cold water before you peel it that stops the cooking all the way through okay then when you when you put the force meat on the outside of the sausage on the outside and fry it it should not get hot all the way through or hot enough all the way through to finish cooking that egg okay that makes sense when you say it it's like oh yeah that makes perfect sense um but these These are from 1807.

So they are boiled So within an inch of its life spoiled hard boiled boiled heart and it says that right in the instructions boil hard okay so I'm gonna cut it in half just to you know as a starter is that okay yep oh that looks pretty good huh that's not as hard-boiled as I thought it was going to be it's almost runny I could have made them runny but that's not what the instructions said huh so um it's going to be hot and it's going to be hot enough let's I do think it's gonna be hot that's not too bad okay Glenn says it's not too bad Glenn says okay so uh the first mention of this that I see in the. United States is in her newspaper from 1883 in Boston the Boston cooking school a very famous cooking school in the.

United States um they did a cooking demonstration that featured. Scotch eggs I'm gonna tell you you're gonna have the one I'm gonna take this you're gonna take the whole app okay foreign not to be too obvious but it's sausage and egg sorry you can use any sausage you want I think these early recipes are so vague you could use any sausage. I don't know that it needs the breading. I mean I have okay so full disclosure. I've never had one so I don't know what the breading brings but to me that doesn't need breading that's fine just the way maybe that brings the toast flavor maybe oh yes just saying egg sausage toast it's all rolled into one so if you've had a scotch egg let us know if it does bring that kind of flavor to it so it is a very simple recipe it is probably one of the earliest versions of fast food everything that I've read about it everything that I've read about it is that in the early 1800s it was meant as a fast food you'd pick one up and you'd go on your way and you'd eat it as you're as you're moving provides everything that you need almost there's no vegetables um but a very convoluted story about where it started and how it got its name and. I'm sticking with the preserved egg thing that's me. I'm on okay I'm on team preserved Scotch eggs noted thanks for stopping by see you again soon..