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Scotch Egg

A fried egg coated in ham and breadcrumb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coating

  1. Cook the bread crumbs and milk together until smooth.

  2. Combine the mixture with the chopped ham, mustard, cayenne, and raw egg. Mix thoroughly.

Coat and fry

  1. Peel the hard-boiled eggs and cover them with the ham mixture.

  2. Heat oil in a deep fryer and fry the coated eggs for 2 minutes until golden.

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. Bread + eggtop 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 centre of the dish, giving the sliced egg its firm, filling base.
Bread crumbs
Absorb milk and bind with the ham, giving the coating body and a soft, moist texture.
Raw egg
Binds the ham and crumb mixture together so it holds its shape around the egg.
Cooked lean ham
Provides savoury flavour and meaty bulk to the outer layer.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs into a smooth paste that spreads easily.

The step that matters

Coating the hard-boiled eggs. The ham mixture must be pressed on evenly with no gaps, because thin or missing spots let hot oil reach the egg and can cause the coating to split or leak during frying.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, milk, pepper, egg. 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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