Name: Scotch Egg (Sausage-Wrapped Soft-Boiled Egg)
Prep time: 55 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 6 eggs; 500 g sausagemeat; 1 tsp salt; 0.5 tsp white pepper; 1 tsp dried sage; 0.5 tsp dried thyme; 0.25 tsp ground mace or nutmeg; 1 tsp mustard; 60 g plain flour; 2 eggs; 150 g breadcrumbs; 1.5 L oil for frying; 2 tbsp English mustard; 2 tbsp brown sauce or pickle

Ingredients

6servings

Ingredients (makes 6)
eggs · medium; a few days old peel far better than very fresh6
sausagemeat · or 500g minced pork with the seasonings below500 g
If using plain minced pork
salt1 tsp
white pepper0.5 tsp
dried sage · sage is what this dish smells of1 tsp
dried thyme0.5 tsp
ground mace or nutmeg0.25 tsp
mustard1 tsp
To coat
plain flour60 g
eggs · beaten2
breadcrumbs · panko holds on best150 g
oil for frying · sunflower or rapeseed1.5 L
To serve
English mustard2 tbsp
brown sauce or pickle · optional2 tbsp

Steps

Lower the eggs into boiling water and time 6 minutes 30 seconds. Starting in cold water makes the timing unrepeatable. At 6 minutes the white is too fragile to wrap and tears; at 8 the yolk has already set. Six and a half is the point where it can be handled and still runs.
⏲ 6 min 30 sec
Straight into iced water for 10 minutes, until cold right through. Stop it here or the carryover heat keeps cooking it. This is also when they peel most easily.
⏲ 10 min
Peel carefully and pat dry. The white is thin, so peeling under water tears it less. Put the peeled eggs back in the fridge.
⏲ 10 min
If using plain mince, work in the salt, white pepper, sage, thyme, mace and mustard until the meat turns tacky. Bought sausagemeat goes in as it is.
⏲ 5 min
Divide the meat into six and press each between two sheets of cling film into a 12cm disc, 1cm thick. Do not mould it by hand — a thick patch is still raw when a thin one has dried out. An even thickness is the whole of this step.
⏲ 15 min
Flour an egg lightly, sit it in the middle of a disc and lift the film to wrap it. Roll it smooth in your palms so no seam is left. A gap collects steam and splits open in the oil.
⏲ 15 min
Coat in flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumbs. A second pass of egg and crumbs makes a thicker shell that slows the heat reaching the middle — which in this dish is an advantage, not a fault.
⏲ 10 min
Chill at least 30 minutes. It sets the shape and keeps the crumbs on, and above all it puts the yolk back at 4°C. That head start is the time you are buying for it while the meat cooks.
⏲ 30 min
Heat the oil to 170°C. At 190 the crumb is brown while the pork is still pink; at 150 the coating drinks oil.
⏲ 10 min
Fry two at a time for 6 to 7 minutes, turning now and then for an even colour. That is how long 1cm of meat takes to reach 70°C right through.
⏲ 7 min
Rest on a rack for 3 minutes, then cut in half. The yolk should run and there should be no pink left in the meat. Serve warm, with mustard.
⏲ 3 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Hard-boiled, the traditional form: almost every shop-bought scotch egg is hard-boiled. A set yolk keeps, which suits its origin as travelling food. Boil for 9 minutes and most of the temperature arithmetic above stops mattering.
Quail eggs: one bite each. Three minutes in the water, three in the oil, and a 5mm meat layer.
Baked: 25 minutes at 200°C. No oil to deal with and lighter, but the crumb dries and colours rather than crisping.
With chorizo or black pudding: replace a third of the sausagemeat. Common in British pubs and much richer.
Vegetarian: a stiff lentil and mushroom mixture in place of the meat. Note that it removes the dish's whole problem, since there is no raw meat waiting to cook.

Tips

Two doneness targets in one object. Cooking meat says the one value you can actually control is core temperature, and everything that follows in it — resting, the reverse sear, thin cuts — assumes a single core. Here there are two, and they want opposite things. So instead of hitting both at once you stagger when each one starts.
The fridge rule runs backwards here. That guide tells you to bring a steak up from fridge temperature to close the gap between surface and centre. A scotch egg is chilled hard to open that gap. Same fact, opposite purpose.
Why 6 minutes 30. Cooking eggs gives 6 minutes as "white barely set, yolk still liquid" and 7 as "jammy, set only at the yolk's edge". To be wrappable the white needs to be firmer than six; to run, the yolk needs to stop short of seven.
Do not use very fresh eggs. As the same guide notes, they peel badly. A soft-boiled white is thin, and once it tears there is nothing to wrap, so that advice matters more here than usual.
Chicken Kiev has a different problem. There the crust is a pressure vessel holding melted butter in; here the crust has nothing to contain. The problem is not pressure, it is time.
Samosa is the opposite fry. A samosa goes nearly twenty minutes in barely-warm oil; this is six at 170°C. Both have to cook through, but one wraps a filling that is already cooked and the other wraps raw meat.
A probe thermometer settles it. If you want to know before you cut, push it into the meat layer and look for 70°C.
Do not leave them sitting more than five minutes. Carryover heat keeps going into the yolk. Cut and serve.

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