Here's how to make scotch eggs by Tim Anderson, MasterChef winner.
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00:00Hi everybody, I'm Tim Anderson. I run a restaurant in Brixton called Nanban. I also wrote a book called Nanban.
00:07It's all about what we call Japanese soul food.
00:11So that's quite lovely, hearty, comforting Japanese food as opposed to your lighter, delicate Japanese food.
00:18Today I'm going to show you how to make a scotch egg.
00:21But not just any scotch egg, this is actually the third best scotch egg in London.
00:26And that's true. This won third place in the scotch egg challenge this year.
00:32So it's a damn good scotch egg.
00:38So this scotch egg is not strictly traditional.
00:41I wanted to incorporate some flavors from our ramen that we do at Nanban.
00:46And the egg itself is very flavorful. I'll show you how to do those later on.
00:50But we're going to start with our mince mixture first.
00:52So we've got some pork mince here.
00:55Try not to use anything too lean. You have to cook this for quite a while.
00:59It tends to dry out if you get mince that's too lean.
01:01So get a nice fatty pork mince.
01:04Start with that.
01:05And I've got some spring onions, just a couple of them.
01:08Which we're going to finely slice.
01:16Then we've got some garlic.
01:20Lots of it. About nine cloves.
01:23Because that garlicky pork flavor is what makes ramen so delicious.
01:28So we're going to just roughly chop this.
01:37Alright, that'll do.
01:40So that all goes in to the pork mince as well.
01:48Then we've got some bamboo shoots.
01:51So bamboo shoots, really interesting flavor I think.
01:54Really essential in ramen. Very, very savory.
01:57Hard to describe really, but really nice.
01:59Works beautifully with pork again.
02:01So we're going to roughly chop these as well.
02:03This will help keep the mince nice and juicy as well.
02:05There's a lot of water in the bamboo shoots.
02:11Alright, so then we're going to season this as well.
02:15Salt.
02:17Plenty of salt.
02:19And white pepper.
02:22I always use white pepper.
02:24I don't really know why.
02:25If you like black pepper better, that's fine.
02:27I just think the flavor works really well with pork.
02:30And then, we've got one very special ingredient.
02:34Not very Japanese at all.
02:36Not very Japanese, but being in Brixton, we use a lot of these.
02:40This is a scotch bonnet chili.
02:42Find them all over Brixton market.
02:45They're very hot, so be careful.
02:47But they're really, really delicious.
02:48They have a fantastic sort of full-on fruity flavor.
02:51We're going to use just half.
02:53De-seeded.
02:54Because they are very, very punchy.
02:56A little bit goes a long way.
02:58And remember, after you handle scotch bonnets or any spicy chili,
03:01to wash your hands.
03:03Especially before touching your eyes.
03:05So this gets very finely sliced.
03:08And then chopped up.
03:10Because what you don't want is getting a big mouthful of this in the pork mince.
03:13You want to have it nice and evenly distributed throughout.
03:17So that goes in.
03:18And oh my god.
03:19Even the smell of that is spicy.
03:21I don't know how, but it is.
03:23It's just fantastic.
03:24I love scotch bonnets.
03:26So that's our pork mince.
03:28We're going to mash up.
03:30Work everything through.
03:31We've got lots of spring onions.
03:32Lots of bamboo shoots.
03:34Lots of garlic.
03:36Salt, white pepper.
03:37And that fierce little scotch bonnet chili.
03:41This is going to be really good.
03:45So that is nice and mixed well.
03:48Next we have to wrap it around our eggs.
03:50So almost every ramen dish we do at Nanban is a soy marinated egg.
03:56An Aditaba.
03:57They're very easy to make.
03:58We've made ours ahead of time.
03:59But basically they're boiled eggs.
04:01And we always boil them for 6 minutes and 20 seconds.
04:04That's from a fridge cold temperature.
04:07And they're small eggs.
04:08So if you're using large eggs or eggs that are at room temperature,
04:10you have to adjust the boiling time accordingly.
04:12So just bear that in mind when you boil eggs.
04:14Also you can make it runnier.
04:15You can make it less runny.
04:17However you like it.
04:18Just by playing with those timings.
04:20I like this consistency for a scotch egg so that it's not too runny.
04:23But you get a nice gooey center in that yolk.
04:25These get marinated in soy sauce, rice vinegar, and mirin.
04:30Which is a sweet cooking sake for a day.
04:33And they become this lovely brown color.
04:35They have so much flavor.
04:37It's amazing.
04:38So the way you make these into scotch eggs
04:41is you grab some of your mince.
04:44And you sort of first shape it into a kind of meatball.
04:47Flatten it out into a nice big patty.
04:51Like that.
04:53Take an egg.
04:55Sort of wrap the mince around it.
04:57Make sure it's really well covered.
05:00And there aren't any gaps in the mince.
05:02Because then when you fry, that gap will widen.
05:04You'll end up frying that egg directly.
05:06It'll be exposed.
05:07All right.
05:08So that's how you start with a scotch egg.
05:13And you just repeat for the rest of the eggs.
05:28All right.
05:29So there's our eggs wrapped in mince.
05:32Ready to be pankoed and then deep fried.
05:35OK.
05:36So we've got our lovely marinated eggs
05:38all wrapped in that very flavorful pork mince.
05:41Now we're going to breadcrumb them.
05:43So it's a standard pane job.
05:47Eggs.
05:56Beat these up.
05:58We've got some strong white bread flour.
06:02You can use plain flour as well.
06:03That's fine.
06:04But for some reason, strong flour just
06:06seems to make a better adhesive when you panko.
06:09And also, it seems to have a better crunch.
06:11I don't really know why.
06:12But that's just what I found.
06:14So we're going to start with the flour.
06:20Then the egg.
06:22Let the egg sort of sit in that egg white.
06:25Let the egg sort of sit in that egg for a little while
06:28so that the egg really soaks into the flour
06:31and forms a kind of glue.
06:32All right.
06:38Then the egg goes into panko and gets tossed through.
06:44Panko, by the way, is Japanese breadcrumbs.
06:46They're coarser.
06:48They're flakier and I think just better generally
06:51than your average breadcrumb.
06:52You can get them at any Asian supermarket.
06:54Some of the big supermarkets have them these days as well.
06:56But if you can't get them, normal breadcrumbs are just fine.
07:00There we go.
07:02Four lovely panko-coated pork-wrapped scotch eggs
07:09ready to be deep-fried.
07:11All right, so we're going to deep-fry these scotch eggs.
07:14A few safety tips first.
07:16First of all, when you're deep-frying at home,
07:18use a big, deep pot.
07:20You want the sides of the pot to come up several inches
07:22above the surface of the oil so in case it bubbles up,
07:24it doesn't overflow.
07:26This is especially important if you're using a gas hob
07:28with an open flame because I've seen it happen
07:31when oil overflows onto a flame
07:33and it just turns into a column of fire, basically.
07:36So be careful.
07:37Also use a thermometer with these in particular
07:39because you have to cook them kind of carefully.
07:41It's not difficult, but you want to cook them
07:43at a precise temperature because you need to cook the pork
07:46all the way through without cooking the egg anymore
07:48because we already cooked that exactly how we want it,
07:50nice and gooey yolk in the middle.
07:52So I've got a thermometer here.
07:54This is just a candy thermometer.
07:55You can use a probe thermometer as well.
07:58Obviously, if you have a deep fryer at home,
08:00you can use that with a built-in thermostat.
08:02We want this to be at about 160.
08:04It's a bit high right now, but the temperature
08:06will come down when we drop the eggs in.
08:08So we are going to go for it.
08:10Carefully lower these into the oil.
08:14And they're going to cook for about 8 minutes.
08:21So these eggs have been cooking for about 8 minutes
08:28and they're looking amazing.
08:30They're looking like that.
08:32Nice, rich, deep golden brown.
08:34If you have a probe thermometer, a meat thermometer,
08:38now is the time to use that.
08:40You just want to stick it into the mince itself,
08:42not into the egg.
08:43And it should read about 60 degrees at least.
08:4565 if you're being safe.
08:47Certainly no less than 55.
08:49That would be very rare pork, which is not nice.
08:54Whoa.
08:55Nearly lost one.
08:57Yeah, we'll lift these out.
08:59Drain them on a paper towel or a rack.
09:03So like any meat, you do want to let the meat
09:07So like any meat, you do want to let these rest for a bit
09:11because right now, all the juices in that meat
09:13is racing around.
09:15It's all boiling and crazy.
09:16If you cut into it now, it'll all just leak out onto the plate.
09:19So let these sit for at least 5 minutes.
09:20Let them cool down.
09:21Actually, these will be fine at room temperature.
09:24You can let them cool down completely.
09:26Make them ahead of time.
09:27Serve them as a snack.
09:28Have them with beer.
09:29They're amazing.
09:31But they are really, really good when they're hot and fresh.
09:33But do let them rest.
09:34And then we slice and serve.
09:36Okay, so the eggs have been fried.
09:38They're all lovely and boxy brown.
09:40And now they've rested, so it's the moment of truth.
09:47Oh yeah.
09:48That is a thing of beauty.
09:51I'm very happy with that.
09:52And you know it's going to be good just by looking at it.
09:55It's got literal layers of flavor.
09:57It's got the crunchy crumb.
09:58It's got the juicy meat with all that garlic and spring onion
10:00and chili and bamboo.
10:02And it's got the lovely soy marinated egg and the yolk itself.
10:06Mmm.
10:08I mean, this is fine as is.
10:11There's so much flavor.
10:13But we always serve it with a little bit of tonkatsu sauce.
10:18That's Japanese brown sauce.
10:20But anything that's kind of sweet and tangy like that would work.
10:24Normal brown sauce, a bit of ponzu, citrus, soy dip, or hot mustard.
10:29English mustard would be great.
10:30It's a pub snack after all, but it's quite the pub snack.