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Scotch Eggs

A fried egg coated in ham and breadcrumb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Scotch Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coating

  1. Cook the bread crumbs in the milk and rub to a smooth paste.

  2. Mix the paste with the ham, add mustard, cayenne, and the raw egg, and mix well.

Coat and fry

  1. Remove the shells from the eggs and cover them with the ham mixture.

  2. Fry in hot fat for 2 minutes, then drain.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold, cut in halves lengthwise, and arrange each half on a bed of fine parsley.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hard boiled eggs
Form the core of the dish, giving substance and a firm centre once wrapped.
Lean ham
Provides savoury flavour and binds into the coating mixture.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the milk to form a paste that thickens and holds the coating together.
Raw egg
Binds the ham mixture so it sets and clings around the boiled eggs when cooked.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so they soften into a smooth, spreadable paste.

The step that matters

Frying the coated eggs. The coating must be firmly set before the eggs are fried, and frying in hot fat for only a short time limits overcooking. Too little heat leaves the coating greasy and loose, while excess heat can burn the outside before it sets.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, bread, milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, bread, milk, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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