Enjoying brunch out can sometimes be disappointing/expensive, the queues too long and you get rushed out before you could order a second mimosa coffee. Welcome to another Sunday Brunch recipe, made at home for you to enjoy.
You know when you see something once, take notice and then suddenly it’s everywhere you look. This recently happened to me with scotch eggs. Blessed, I know. I’ve never had a scotch egg before and it seemed the universe was trying to tell me something. I awoke Saturday morning with a very clear mission: make vegetarian scotch eggs.
Whoever came up with the idea of wrapping eggs in stuff and breadcrumbs then frying them was someone full of great intellect. Scotch eggs are delicious and I struggle to accept that I’ve never had one until my 24th year of life. 24 years without a scotch egg is too long.
Let’s get right to it – this is serious business.
Scotch eggs are generally a soft boiled egg cased in sausage meat, crumb-coated, then fried. To vegetarianize I used a combination of butter beans and falafel blitzed in a food processor. The spices from the falafel gave the mixture a nice punch of herbs and spices and from my memory of what sausages used to taste like, it wasn’t too far off.
The mixture was the perfect consistency to carefully mould around the boiled egg and was near close to perfection. If there was anything I could do to improve this brunch, I’d learn how to hard boil an egg properly, doh!
This was a really nice way to start my weekend and the scotch eggs were so jam packed full of protein (eggs, chickpeas and beans) that brunch doubled as lunch which satisfied me right up until dinner time.
Paired with some simple veg this would be a perfect breakfast, lunch or dinner. Don’t go another year without scotch egging.
Print
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 4 large free-range eggs
- 4 small falafels roughly chopped
- 1 400 g tin butter beans (or cannellini)
- 1 teaspoon dried or fresh dill leaves
- Pinch Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 125 g plain flour (seasoned with salt and pepper)
- 1 free-range egg (beaten)
- 125 g white breadcrumbs seasoned with 1 teaspoon rosemary and salt
- Vegetable/olive oil for shallow frying
Instructions
- Place the eggs in a pan of boiling salted water and gently simmer for 6 1/2 mins. Drain and cool the eggs under cold running water, then peel and set aside.
- Drain the beans, and rinse thoroughly in cold water. Mash them together with the finely chopped falafels and pulse in a food processor with the dill, salt and pepper.
- Add half of the beaten egg (keep the remaining for the crumbing), along with all of the seasoning and mix.
- Divide into four 100g portions and flatten each out on a piece of clingfilm about 40cm squared, into ovals double the size of your egg.
- Place each egg onto the oval, then pick the clingfilm square up by its corners, and use it to wrap the bean mix around each egg. Make sure the coating is smooth and completely covers the egg.
- Roll each egg into flour first, then in the beaten egg, rolling to coat completely, then roll in the breadcrumbs to completely cover.
- Heat the oil in a deep heavy-bottomed pan, you want about 4-5cm of oil. Test oil is ready (with a breadcrumb – if it sizzles and turns brown you’re ready).
- Carefully place each scotch egg into the hot oil and deep-fry for 2-3 minutes each side, until golden and crisp.
- Carefully remove the egg from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper
- You want to under cook your eggs when boiling so you still end up with runny yolks after deep frying in the oil.
- Category: Breakfast, Vegetarian
