BBQ Scotch Eggs

jfm0830

This is another recipe from Wicked Good Barbecue that I have been drooling over since I spotted it several weeks ago. I made it over several days and threw it on the Egg early this morning and my parents joined me for an 8:00AM breakfast. 

On Sunday I made some medium boiled Eggs. The eggs went into some cold water, which was brought to a boil and then reduced to a simmer for 3 minutes.

The eggs went into an ice water bath for 10 minutes.

The eggs were peeled and stored in the refrigerator.

Last night (Monday) I made the Scotch Eggs. They used Sweet Italian sausage, maple syrup and some iQUE BBQ rub. This leftover rub was the same rub I used making the ribs and pulled pork from Wicked Good Barbecue).

The two pounds of sausage was mixed together with maple syrup. Instead of using cased sausages, I bought 2 pounds of ground Italian sausages. I thought this would make things easier. It didn't. The consistency of the ground sausage was "looser" and the addition of 1/2 cup of maple syrup to the mixture made for a very soupy ground sausage mixture. Making the patties was a very iffy process. Next time I will stick to cased sausage.

The meat was measured out into 6 equal  (1/3 pound) portions using the Kitchen scale. The meat was pressed into six 1/4" thick patties.

The six medium boiled eggs were set into the center of the patties and the meat was wrapped around the egg to form a large egg shaped "meatball". As I mentioned earlier , this was a very difficult process due to the soupiness of the mix.

The six egg-shaped "meatballs"  get coated with the iQUE rub and then they went  for an overnight stay in the fridge.

Here are the Scotch Eggs fresh out of the fridge after an overnight stay and they are about to go on the BGE which has been stabilized at 250 degrees.

The Egg has been set up for indirect grilling with the plate setter installed legs up and the stainless steel grill grid. I've got the grate probe for my Maverick ET-732 installed and the temps are at 250. The Scotch Eggs are on a wire cooling rack to keep them out of the drippings. The cooling rack is in a aluminum foil covered jelly roll pan.

After an hour on the Egg at 250 degrees, the Scotch eggs are ready.

Time to eat!! The Scotch Eggs went straight from the Egg to the table. 

The Scotch Eggs were topped with some additional maple syrup and some English muffins.

I've got one word for these: Dee-licious.

None of us had ever tried these before, but everyone loved these Scotch Eggs. I understand they are normally deep fried, but I can't imagine eating them any other way other than on the grill. The interesting thing about Wicked Good Barbecue is the recipes aren't all the food entered into the various competitions by the iQUE BBQ team. Many of them are things they make to eat themselves, and let me just say they treat themselves well.

Jim

Mkline

Nice cook, the only thing it lacks is a piece of bacon being wrapped around it. This is now in my to try list. 

Is the book worth purchasing?  

RAC

Nice work! This is on my list to try on our next trip out with the RV.

jfm0830

Mkline said:

......Is the book worth purchasing?  

Not a simple answer. I was given an autographed copy by a friend who knows Andy Husbands, one of the authors, but  I think I would have bought it anyway. These guys won the 2009 Jack Daniels BBQ championship and the recipes in the book are supposedly the award winning recipes with no "secret ingredients" held back. The ribs were amazing, as was the pulled pork. But the pulled pork was N.C. vinegar based and I prefer S.C. style mustard based pulled pork. So it depends on what you like for your BBQ. Also as I mentioned, many of the recipes are things they cook while at comps or when tailgating. Take a look at the table of contents to see if these recipes interest you too. For me everything I have made has been an A- to an A++. Your mileage may vary.

GrannyX4

Jim, I made the sausage and eggs last week (not with maple syrup but a great idea) and I did notice that when the sausage got warm it became more difficult to form around the egg. Just a thought. Awesome cook! ;;)

nolaegghead

GrannyX4 said:

Jim, I made the sausage and eggs last week (not with maple syrup but a great idea) and I did notice that when the sausage got warm it became more difficult to form around the egg. Just a thought. Awesome cook! ;;)

That makes sense - when making sausage, you want everything cold when you're stuffing. 

Sounds good (except for the maple syrup - I'm more into savory Q).

SaltySam

Bookmarked.  This is one of the most creative cooks I've seen!  Very cool

Hi54putty

Very interesting. Thanks.

Mkline

@jfm0830, thanks will look into it. Might just pick it up during my next amazon order.

Fred19Flintstone

Jim - I'm glad you posted because I've seen the book and wondered if it was good. It looks like its worth a peek.

I'm with Nola about savory Q being better. At the breakfast table, syrup never touches savory items on my plate. Yuck! Separate plates please!

jfm0830

Thanks as always for looking and your kind comments. 

As for the "rules" for Q it is funny because they talk about it in the book. They mention that since they are all a bunch of "Damn Yankees" (like me) they don't come from a background with all kinds of BBQ traditions. They felt this allowed them to think outside of the box and come up with uniquely flavored recipes that helped set them aside from other teams. 

Up here I am very close to Vermont and Canada homes to some excellent Maple syrup. I have had some BBQ items originating from Canada that feature maple syrup as part of the recipes. Since I "don't know any better" I've tried them all. I have had some surprisingly good BBQ with maple syrup in it and other items where I almost threw up and couldn't eat it. I always try to do a recipe as written the first time out. Both Wicked Good Barbecue and Wicked Good Burgers feature some unusual takes on things. So far I have loved everything I tried, so I used the maple syrup. Actually it was mixed in with the ground pork too when you were making the "porkballs". 

Putting it on top like I did wasn't mentioned in the recipe itself, but it was shown in two of the pictures of the plated Scotch Eggs. The maple syrup on top was a split decision 2/2. Everyone liked it with the syrup on it. Two people (my wife and I) liked it better with the syrup, my parents liked it both ways, but liked it better without. Fortunately they listened when I suggested pouring it on their plates and dunking the food on the fork in it vs pouring it on the Scotch Egg itself.

Like I said, I'm just a Damn Yankee, so what do I know? I just try everything and discover what works for me.

Egghead_Daron

I was just informed about Scotch Eggs last week. I had never heard of them before. My Canadian friends I am working with told me about them. The only thing they told me to do that was different than this was to crush up corn flakes and use them as a breading and then deep fry them. Which I intend to try in a dutch oven on the egg. But I am pretty sure wrapped in bacon and smoked would be just as awesome too!

Learning to Smoke

Looks very tasty!

caliking

Damn good looking eggs. I would not have used that much syrup, but i do like the sweet heat combo, so a little syrup does sound good. 

Eggcited Bravesfan in Minneapolis

I made these for an Egg Fest and they went over very well. Even people who looked at them a bit funny initially wanted to know more about them. Yours look great! Nice work.

pwg56

Awesome once again. For me, the syrup would make the dish. Another @jfm0830 cook I'm trying!

BYS1981

I made those a while back, I enjoy them - I'm thinking these might be my Sunday breakfast.

jfm0830

Thanks ladies and gents..

@GrannyX4 The ground pork was in the fridge right up to the point where I snapped the pictures on the counter, so they were out of the fridge for 2 or 3 minutes at the most. The consistency of this reminded me very much of some ground veal burgers I made several years ago. The ground version of the meat was very soupy and I ended up having to add breadcrumbs and egg to the meat mixture the second time around. The first time I made the veal burgers I was afraid the veal burgers would ooze down and out through the grill grate. Next time I will buy and try the sausage in the casing (like the recipe called for) to see if I like this consistency better. There was nothing wrong with the finished product, but they were a concern until they had cooked.

Eggcited Bravesfan in Minneapolis said:

I made these for an Egg Fest and they went over very well. Even people who looked at them a bit funny initially wanted to know more about them...

Funny you should mention that. I am doing 3 Eggfests (including the Big Kahuna in Stone Mountain) this summer. This year I had no thoughts of cooking anything, but I was just thinking these might make an interesting dish to make at some future date....I am curious how you served them. Did you cut them into smaller portion sized servings? How many servings per Scotch egg? Did you use maple syrple with them and did you put it on or did you let the folks add it if they wanted?  Sorry for all the questions, but just yesterday I was thinking these would be an interesting dish for an Eggfest, but not without issues. For example: I was thinking there might be issues cutting them up because some of the portions might get a lot more or less egg than the others. 

The Naked Whiz

Just so you know, if you eat these for breakfast, your English friends may laugh at you. 

BYS1981

The Naked Whiz said:

Just so you know, if you eat these for breakfast, your English friends may laugh at you. 

luckily, I have no English friends to worry about that! lol

The Naked Whiz

But I am married to one, lol!   Oh, I was soooooo naive,  :-)

fishlessman

thats news to me, the english butcher shop near me, thwaites, sells them hot in the mornings with the pork pies, im in there 0nce or twice a week for breakfast.
    jfm0830 for a different twist, try some cooked at 550 inderect, dip in oil and roll in bread crumbs and cook high in the dome, they almost fry that way

Griffin

Awesome cook, Jim. Been too long since I've done those. Gonna make a batch of those up this weekend for breakfast throughout the week.

SaturdayFatterday

Definitely bookmarking this one.

jfm0830

The Naked Whiz said:

Just so you know, if you eat these for breakfast, your English friends may laugh at you.  

That is too funny! I was originally planning on having them Monday night for supper.  Monday afternoon my schedule changed so that I didn't have time left to do the prep and fire up the grill in time to have them for supper. I had been actually feeling "guilty" about having them for supper. Maybe it was the maple syrup or perhaps the presence of eggs, but either way I ASSumed they were for breakfast.

@Fishlessman Thanks for the tip, that really does sound good!!

Eggcelsior

The Naked Whiz said:

Just so you know, if you eat these for breakfast, your English friends may laugh at you. 

What about taking them to a picnic?

The Naked Whiz

You can do whatever you want, cause this is America!  But yes, that is a common use for them in the UK.

SaltySam

@jfm0830  Couple of questions:

What is the little angle iron you use to prop up your grill probe?  Have I been missing something in the ET-732 box for months now?  Or is that something you fashioned?

Also, did you cook the sausage to temp at all?  I see you pulled it after an hour at 250, but what is a good target temp for sausage?  Similar to ground beef?

calracefan

SaltySam said:

@jfm0830  Couple of questions:

What is the little angle iron you use to prop up your grill probe?  Have I been missing something in the ET-732 box for months now?  Or is that something you fashioned?

Also, did you cook the sausage to temp at all?  I see you pulled it after an hour at 250, but what is a good target temp for sausage?  Similar to ground beef?

My Maverick came with that same probe holder, you might "check your box"

GrannyX4

I make a big batch if these little gems when we go away. Last week is was for all star baseball tournament. Another was a week on the beach. I also make a gruyere cheese sauce for them when I want to get fancy or have a large number of people staying at the house. Next time I make them I'm going to give the maple syrup a try. Love the post and your new kitchen. ;;)

jfm0830

Thanks for looking and thanks for all of the additional comments guys and gals.

GrannyX4 said:

I make a big batch if these little gems when we go away. Last week is was for all star baseball tournament. Another was a week on the beach. I also make a gruyere cheese sauce for them when I want to get fancy or have a large number of people staying at the house. Next time I make them I'm going to give the maple syrup a try. Love the post and your new kitchen. ;;)

@GrannyX4 Does this mean you end up reheating these puppies? If so would you mind sharing the details of how you reheat them? Thanks! RE: The new Kitchen.. Thank you so much! I love it too. Every once in a while if I'm daydreaming or a little tired, I will look up from what I am doing and expect to see the old kitchen. Instead I am greeted by the sight of the new kitchen and this nice feeling washes over me as I realize this is my new Kitchen and it is real, not a dream. It sure has been a lot of fun.

@SaltySam That is indeed the clip for holding the great probe above the grate. It came with both my old Maverick ET-73 and my new ET-732 thermometer. Check your box to see if it is still in there. Actually it wouldn't be too hard to fashion something out of some  sheet-metal to serve as a substitute, if you can't find the original. As for the doneness temperature: It was 160°, just like what they recommend for Ground beef. I found the time and temperature combinations in both Wicked Good Burgers and Wicked Good Barbecue to be pretty much right on in terms of cooking time and temperature. I did check it with an instant Read thermometer prior to pulling it off the grill.