Scotch eggs Asian style are Asian style eggs wrapped in minced meat and then fried. Unlike the name, scotch eggs did not origin in Scotland, but in England. In 1783 the term was already used for a traveler snack. Eat them hot or cold. Until today it is a filling, protein rich and hearty snack or meat dish.
The art of making scotch eggs Asian style
This dish can be used as a snack, but also as the meat dish in a simple, but delicious dinner. In the most basic form of making a scotch egg, an egg is hard boiled, cooled down, peeled and enveloped in minced meat, sometimes breaded and then pan fried. Here we soft-boil the eggs and let them sit for a few hours or a day in a mixture of soy sauce, cold tea, some herbs such as cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg. Hereto we crackle the egg peel, but do not peel it, so the aroma’s can be infused into the eggs’ exterior.
The next day we peel the egg that is infused with the Asian aroma and has a still running yolk. We then make our own minced meat or use ready bought minced meat and spice it. Thereafter we envelop the eggs with the minced meat and fry them (either pan-fry or deep-fry).
Regarding boiling eggs, a lot of variables come into play. Such as the size of the egg, the temperature of the egg, the starting temperature of the water in which it is boiled and the capacity of the heat source. To make it easier, we pierce on each end of the egg a tiny hole. Then we bring water to the boil and immerse the cold eggs in the boiling water. Large eggs need 6 minutes in the slow boiling water and then need to be immediately cooled down to be soft boiled.
Special equipment
- Sharp pointed metal rod like a very large needle or the sharp tip of corkscrew.
Scotch eggs Asian style
Ingredients
Ingredients for boiling and infusing the eggs
- 4 eggs
- 1 quart water for boiling
- 1 resealable Zip lock bag
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 cup cold tea
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 cloves
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
Ingredients for the minced meat
- 3/4 lb (340 g) minced pork meat you can substitute by beef, lamb or other meat
- 3/4 lb (340 g) minced beef meat you can substitute by pork, lamb or other meat
- 2 oz (56 g) minced onion
- 2 tsp mustard Dijon preferred
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1-2 cup bread crumbs
- 1/2 tsp ground pepper
- 3 tbsp olive oil or butter (I use one tbsp butter and 2 tbsp olive oil)
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 egg
Instructions
Instructions to boil the eggs
- Bring the water to a boil
- Meanwhile pierce tiny holes at the two ends of each of the eggs
- When the water is boiling, carefully load the cold eggs one by one in the boiling water. If the water goes off boiling, heat until the water boils again. Keep boiling at a low pace
- Boil the eggs for exactly 6 minutes measured from when the last egg was immersed.
- Take them out and rinse them with plenty of cold water and let them further cool down in a large bowl with cold water
Instruction to infuse the boiled eggs
- When the eggs are cold, take them out, and crackle the peel but without taking the peel off.
- Place the eggs in a plastic Zip lock bag with the mixture of tea, soy sauce and spices. Leave in the fridge for 6-18 h. Now and then move the bag a little
- When ready to wrap them in minced meat, take them out of the mixture and peel them
Making the mince meat mixture
- Mix the meat, the egg, the onion, all the sauces, the mustard, the pepper, nutmeg and add in portions the bread crumbs. Likely not more than a good cup will be required; keep the reminder for breading the balls
- Knead with one hand. You want to have the mixture not too stiff and not too wet
Instructions to make the scotch eggs
- Then make a flat patty of prepared, minced meat and place one preserved egg in the middle and wrap the egg completely with the minced meat. Roughly a quarter of the prepared mince meat will do for each egg. It also depends on the size of your eggs. Do all 4 eggs in the same way
- Use remaining bread crumbs to bread the egg/meat balls
- Then in a frying pan, heat the butter or oil and pan-fry the meat balls evenly on all sides, in the beginning at higher fire, later at lower.
- Serve them hot. When cutting them, the egg yolk may come oozing out. It provides for a more moist taste experience then a hard boiled egg.
- If you prefer small balls as snacks, consider to use quail eggs for the interior.
Notes
Food allergy & intolerance information: eggs, soy
Remarks
- Personally I find the size of the snack so large that I prefer to eat it as the main meat dish. Do you like to offer multiple bite-sized miniature scotch eggs? Then I suggest to use quail eggs for the interior and thus you can offer many small balls.
- Why piercing the tiny holes on each end of the egg? These make it possible to put the cold eggs in boiling water, without breaking or losing their content.
