Here's how to make scotch eggs by Tim Anderson, MasterChef winner.
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00:00 Hi everybody, I'm Tim Anderson. I run a restaurant in Brixton called Nanban. I also wrote a book called Nanban.
00:07 It's all about what we call Japanese soul food.
00:11 So that's quite lovely, hearty, comforting Japanese food as opposed to your lighter, delicate Japanese food.
00:18 Today I'm going to show you how to make a scotch egg.
00:21 But not just any scotch egg, this is actually the third best scotch egg in London.
00:26 And that's true. This won third place in the scotch egg challenge this year.
00:32 So it's a damn good scotch egg.
00:34 So this scotch egg is not strictly traditional.
00:41 I wanted to incorporate some flavours from our ramen that we do at Nanban.
00:46 And the egg itself is very flavourful. I'll show you how to do those later on.
00:50 But we're going to start with our mince mixture first.
00:52 So we've got some pork mince here. Try not to use anything too lean.
00:57 You have to cook this for quite a while. It tends to dry out if you get mince that's too lean.
01:01 So get a nice fatty pork mince.
01:03 Start with that.
01:05 And I've got some spring onions, just a couple of them.
01:08 Which we're going to finely slice.
01:10 And we've got some garlic.
01:20 Lots of it. About nine cloves.
01:23 Because that garlicky pork flavour is what makes ramen so delicious.
01:28 So we're going to just roughly chop this.
01:31 Alright, that'll do.
01:39 So that all goes in to the pork mince as well.
01:48 Then we've got some bamboo shoots.
01:51 So bamboo shoots, really interesting flavour I think.
01:54 Really essential in ramen. Very, very savoury.
01:57 Hard to describe really, but really nice.
01:59 Works beautifully with pork again.
02:01 So we're going to roughly chop these as well.
02:03 This will help keep the mince nice and juicy as well.
02:05 There's a lot of water in the bamboo shoots.
02:08 Alright, so then we're going to season this as well.
02:15 Salt. Plenty of salt.
02:19 And white pepper.
02:22 I always use white pepper.
02:24 I don't really know why. If you like black pepper better, that's fine.
02:27 I just think the flavour works really well with pork.
02:30 And then, we've got one very special ingredient.
02:34 Not very Japanese at all.
02:36 Not very Japanese, but being in Brixton, we use a lot of these.
02:40 This is a Scotch Bonnet chili.
02:42 You can find them all over Brixton market.
02:45 They're very hot, so be careful.
02:47 But they're really, really delicious.
02:49 They have a fantastic sort of full on fruity flavour.
02:51 We're going to use just half.
02:53 De-seeded, because they are very, very punchy.
02:56 A little bit goes a long way.
02:58 And remember, after you handle Scotch Bonnets or any spicy chili,
03:01 to wash your hands.
03:03 Especially before touching your eyes.
03:05 So this gets very finely sliced.
03:08 And then chopped up.
03:10 Because what you don't want is getting a big mouthful of this in the pork mince.
03:14 You want to have it nice and evenly distributed throughout.
03:17 So that goes in.
03:19 And oh my god, even the smell of that is spicy.
03:21 I don't know how, but it is.
03:23 It's just fantastic. I love Scotch Bonnets.
03:26 So that's our pork mince.
03:29 We're going to mash up. Work everything through.
03:31 We've got lots of spring onions, lots of bamboo shoots.
03:34 Lots of garlic.
03:36 Salt, white pepper.
03:38 And that fierce little Scotch Bonnet chili.
03:41 This is going to be really good.
03:44 So that is nice and mixed well.
03:47 Next we have to wrap it around our eggs.
03:50 So, almost every ramen dish we do at Nanban is a soy marinated egg.
03:56 An Aditaba.
03:57 They're very easy to make. We've made ours ahead of time.
03:59 But basically they're boiled eggs.
04:01 And we always boil them for 6 minutes and 20 seconds.
04:04 That's from a fridge cold temperature.
04:06 And they're small eggs.
04:08 So if you're using large eggs or eggs that are at room temperature,
04:10 you have to adjust the boiling time accordingly.
04:12 So just bear that in mind when you boil eggs.
04:14 Also you can make it runnier.
04:16 You can make it less runny, however you like it,
04:18 just by playing with those timings.
04:20 I like this consistency for a Scotch egg so that it's not too runny.
04:23 But you get a nice gooey center in that yolk.
04:25 These get marinated in soy sauce, rice vinegar, and mirin,
04:30 which is a sweet cooking sake for a day.
04:33 And they become this lovely brown color.
04:36 They have so much flavor, it's amazing.
04:38 So the way you make these into Scotch eggs
04:41 is you grab some of your mince.
04:44 You sort of first shape it into a kind of meatball.
04:47 Flatten it out into a nice big patty.
04:51 Like that.
04:53 Take an egg, sort of wrap the mince around it.
04:57 Make sure it's really well covered
05:00 and there aren't any gaps in the mince.
05:02 Because then when you fry, that gap will widen
05:04 and you'll end up frying that egg directly.
05:06 It'll be exposed.
05:08 Alright, so that's how you start with a Scotch egg.
05:13 And you just repeat for the rest of the eggs.
05:28 Alright, so there's our eggs wrapped in mince.
05:32 Ready to be pan-coed and then deep-fried.
05:35 Okay, so we've got our lovely marinated eggs
05:38 all wrapped in that very flavorful pork mince.
05:40 Now we're going to breadcrumb them.
05:43 So it's a standard pan-e job.
05:47 Eggs.
05:56 Beat these up.
05:58 We've got some strong white bread flour.
06:05 You can use plain flour as well, that's fine.
06:07 But for some reason, strong flour just seems to make
06:10 a better adhesive when you pan-co.
06:12 And also it seems to have a better crunch.
06:14 I don't really know why, but that's just what I've found.
06:17 So, we're going to start with the flour.
06:23 And then we're going to let the egg sort of sit in that egg
06:27 for a little while so that the egg really soaks into the flour
06:30 and forms a kind of glue.
06:32 Alright.
06:34 Then the egg goes into the pan-co and gets tossed through.
06:43 Pan-co, by the way, is Japanese breadcrumbs.
06:46 They're coarser, they're flakier,
06:49 and I think just better generally than your average breadcrumb.
06:52 You can get them at any Asian supermarket.
06:54 Some of the big supermarkets have them these days as well.
06:56 But if you can't get them, normal breadcrumbs are just fine.
07:00 There we go.
07:02 Four lovely pan-co coated pork wrapped scotch eggs
07:08 ready to be deep fried.
07:10 Alright, so we're going to deep fry these scotch eggs.
07:13 A few safety tips first.
07:16 First of all, when you're deep frying at home,
07:18 use a big, deep pot.
07:20 You want the sides of the pot to come up several inches
07:22 above the surface of the oil,
07:24 so in case it bubbles up, it doesn't overflow.
07:26 This is especially important if you're using a gas hob
07:28 with an open flame, because I've seen it happen
07:31 when oil overflows onto a flame
07:33 and it just turns into a column of fire, basically.
07:36 So be careful.
07:37 Also use a thermometer with these in particular,
07:39 because you have to cook them kind of carefully.
07:41 It's not difficult, but you want to cook them
07:43 at a precise temperature, because you need to cook the pork
07:46 all the way through without cooking the egg anymore,
07:48 because we already cooked that exactly how we want it,
07:50 nice and gooey yolk in the middle.
07:52 So I've got a thermometer here.
07:54 This is just a candy thermometer.
07:55 You can use a probe thermometer as well.
07:58 Obviously, if you have a deep fryer at home,
08:00 you can use that with a built-in thermostat.
08:02 We want this to be at about 160.
08:04 It's a bit high right now, but the temperature
08:06 will come down when we drop the eggs in.
08:08 So we are going to go for it.
08:10 Carefully lower these into the oil.
08:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:17 And they're going to cook for about eight minutes.
08:22 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:25 So these eggs have been cooking for about eight minutes,
08:32 and they're looking amazing.
08:34 They're looking like that--
08:36 nice, rich, deep golden brown.
08:38 If you have a probe thermometer, a meat thermometer,
08:42 now is the time to use it.
08:44 You just want to stick it into the mince itself,
08:46 not into the egg, and it should read about 60 degrees at least.
08:49 65, if you're being safe.
08:51 Certainly no less than 55.
08:53 That would be very rare pork, which is not nice.
08:58 Whoa.
08:59 Nearly lost one.
09:02 Yeah, we'll lift these out, drain them
09:05 on a paper towel or a rack.
09:08 So like any meat, you do want to let
09:10 these rest for a bit, because right now all the juices in that
09:13 meat is racing around.
09:15 It's all boiling and crazy.
09:16 If you cut into it now, it'll all just leak out onto the plate.
09:19 So let these sit for at least five minutes.
09:20 Let them cool down.
09:21 Actually, these will be fine, actually, at room temperature.
09:24 So you can let them cool down completely,
09:26 make them ahead of time, serve them as a snack,
09:28 have them with beer.
09:29 They're amazing.
09:30 But they are really, really good when they're hot and fresh.
09:33 But do let them rest, and then we slice and serve.
09:36 OK, so the eggs have been fried.
09:38 They're all lovely and foxy brown.
09:40 And now they've rested, so it's the moment of truth.
09:44 Oh, yeah.
09:48 That is a thing of beauty.
09:51 I'm very happy with that.
09:52 And you know it's going to be good just by looking at it.
09:55 It's got literal layers of flavor.
09:56 It's got the crunchy crumb.
09:57 It's got the juicy meat with all that garlic and spring onion
10:00 and chili and bamboo.
10:02 And it's got the lovely soy-marinated egg
10:04 and the yolk itself.
10:06 Mm.
10:08 I mean, this is fine as is.
10:10 There's so much flavor.
10:13 But we always serve it with a little bit of tonkatsu sauce.
10:17 That's Japanese brown sauce.
10:20 But anything that's kind of sweet and tangy like that would work.
10:23 Normal brown sauce, a bit of ponzu, citrus, soy dip,
10:27 or hot mustard, English mustard would be great.
10:30 It's a pub snack, after all.
10:32 But it's quite the pub snack.
10:35 [music]
10:41 (upbeat music)