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Scotch Eggs

Hard‑boiled eggs wrapped in sausage, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Scotch Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs until hard, then cool them in cold water.

  2. Shell the eggs and surround each with sausage meat.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each sausage-covered egg in the beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in a deep pan with plenty of oil until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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

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

  2. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 firm centre that holds the whole Scotch egg together.
Sausage meat
Forms the outer layer, adding savoury flavour and a moist, substantial coating.
Beaten egg
Acts as a glue so the bread crumbs adhere to the sausage layer.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in a deep pan with plenty of oil until golden brown. The sausage must cook through in the centre while the crumb coating browns. Frying in plenty of oil at a steady heat transfers heat evenly around the egg, so the outside browns without the meat staying raw inside.

“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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