Patrick’s Perfect Scotch Eggs

A special coworker and friend died yesterday. Making his special recipe is my way of honoring his life. He used to make the BEST Scotch Eggs … and whenever he brought them in, they disappeared lightning fast! I’m not much of a meat eater normally, but Patrick’s Scotch Eggs were SOoooo good, spicy sausage with a crunchy outer crust and a perfectly hard boiled egg inside. He shared his recipe with us a while ago, but I never wrote it down. I’m so grateful he submitted it for inclusion in our company cookbook. It was the first thing I wanted to see when I heard he was gone. I wanted to read the recipe in his own words and remember the joy in his eyes when he talked me through the process of preparing his famous Scotch eggs.

Patrick was one of our software developers, super intelligent, witty, quick with a smile and joke. He was genuine and kind. I loved working with him. There were times he was stubborn and even grumpy, but he always came through with a brilliant solution. He was an introvert with spunk, a lively conversationalist when he got going, but most of the time he kept to himself. He always wore a hat. Patrick loved to read, he loved British humor and the Beatles … once he showed me this beautiful collector’s edition of the Beatles music that he’d purchased. It was gorgeous. He relished anything with peanut butter in it … especially the peanut butter girl scout cookies. He taught me how wonderful those cookies are when dunked in coffee and always bought extra cookies to share at the office. I still have a couple of the last cookies he shared with us in my desk drawer that I’ve been saving so I could enjoy one with my coffee every now and again. They will be be even more precious now.

Patrick had a terminal illness, so we knew this was coming, but you’re never prepared for the reality of death when it hits. I remember when he first learned of his disease, our HR person put out a notice asking if anyone wanted to donate their personal time off to Patrick. The response was overwhelming … people donated more than enough leave time to cover all his appointments and treatments and still more time to just stay home when he didn’t have the strength to work. Patrick was so grateful for the outpouring of support that he bought two toaster ovens for the office … I went to thank him (because I use them often in cooking class) … and he said to me, “I was ordering one and then I thought … why buy one when you can have two at twice the price!” He was such a generous soul, the kind of person that would order a case of peanut butter for the food drive. He was so full of life, and he treasured every day. He told me he wanted to program until the day he died.

I guess he got his wish. We will all miss him … there will be a gaping hole in our team now.

I found it easiest to form the sausage around the egg if I made sort of a cup of sausage first, then folded the rest of the sausage to cover the egg. The beauty of this recipe is you don’t have to make a dozen. You can make just one … or two … or however many you need for the number of people you want to feed. Allow a pound of sausage for every 3 eggs. I didn’t make a dozen, because there are only three people in my house and my daughter was sleeping. So I just made one Scotch egg and my son and I shared it. I had some orange juice with mine … he had a some fresh pineapple with his.

These Scotch eggs tasted just like I remembered … thank you, once again, Patrick. Rest in peace.

Patrick’s Perfect Scotch Eggs

• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
• Total Time: 2 hours
• Yield: 12 - 24 servings 1x

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Ingredients

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• 1 dozen eggs
• 4 lbs. ground hot sausage
• Bread crumbs (for gluten free, use gluten free bread crumbs or crushed rice chex)
• Paprika, to taste

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Instructions

1. Soft boil the eggs (like hard-boiling eggs, but subtract a few minutes from normal cooking time). Immediately plunge the eggs in an ice-water bath to stop the cooking. Preheat oven to 385 F. Set a rack over a baking sheet or use a roasting pan to allow the grease to drain from the sausage without the eggs touching the grease.
2. Peel the shell from the eggs, then wrap each egg in a generous amount of sausage (about 1/3 lb. per egg), then roll in breadcrumbs to coat. Place on roasting pan or rack.
3. Bake for 30 minutes, then turn the eggs. Bake for another 30 minutes. At this point, my sausage was definitely done, so I stopped there, but if needed, bake up to another 30 minutes.
4. Place the eggs on paper towels to cool and drain off extra grease. The outside should be crunchy.
5. To serve, cut each egg in half and sprinkle with paprika.

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Notes

Patrick says the only sausage he’s found that works well is Jimmy Dean’s Hot Sausage, so that’s what I used. I had some leftover breadcrumb mixture from my Sriracha Brussels Sprouts Poppers (recipe here) in my freezer, so I used that in place of breadcrumbs.

I soft boiled my egg in the Instant Pot … 1 cup of water, put the egg on the rack above the water. Pressure cook for 3 minutes. Quick release. They peeled so easy! Another method is to put the egg in water in a pot on the stove, bring to a boil, remove from heat. Let sit in the hot water for 5 minutes. Plunge in ice water.

RECIPE SOURCE: http://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/

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This recipe was shared at Amaze me Monday, Full Plate Thursday, Weekend Potluck, What to Do Weekends, Happiness is Homemade, What’s for Dinner? and Home Matters.