They’re called Scotch Eggs. Don’t ask me where I got the idea to make ‘em–I don’t remember! What I do recall is reading about them some place and making a note to kitchen-test them when I had the chance.

Don’t let their name fool you. Scotch eggs are believed to have been cooked up in a London food shop in the 1700’s, not by a chef in Scotland. Each one is a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage mixture, breaded and deep-fried. Sinful? Yes. Yummy? Abso-scottish-lutely! (Hehe.)

To make these less, er, bad, I decided to try the recipe with turkey sausage instead of pork. I threw in some fresh thyme into the sausage mixture after I removed it from the casings; somehow thyme is just awesome in sausages, so I figured it would give the dish a little extra curly twist.

Other than that, all I did was wrap the hard-boiled egg, dredge it in flour, dip it into beaten egg and gave it a final coating of breadcrumbs. Have to admit that it was a bit tricky because I had to remember to use one hand to do the dipping (which was wet) and another hand to do the flour-dredging and the crumb coat (which were dry). But I survived and cooked these in really hot oil two at a time to try and maintain the heat in the pan. These would be a breeze in a deep fryer!

These are a traditional picnic food because of their portability. They’re often eaten cold with pickles, but they were delicious when we sampled them warm. I imagine these would be great with different dips on the sides like ketchup, ranch dressing or honey mustard.

What I ought to do is try making smaller, bite-sized versions with quail eggs. Those would be way cuter and would be easier to handle. If you get the chance to make the mini ones, let me know how they turn out!

Have a great weekend, laddies!