Scotch eggs = delicious! Who knew?

Last night in class each team made some form of egg dish or a baked good made with eggs.  TWe ate eggs benedict, gougeres, churros, egg fried rice, two frittatas and lemon poppy seed cake.   Our team made scotch eggs. More on that later... Everything except for the fried raice came out really good!  My favorite was the pâte à choux dough which is used for both the gougeres and the churros.   I look forward to trying that recipe at home!

Since we have not had a chance to work with any meat products in the last few weeks, Chef let our team pick out the dish we wanted to make.  We figured Scotch eggs would  be fun since none of us have ever made it before and it required using the deep fryer... which is both scary and fun.

For those of you who don't know what Scotch eggs are or who have never seen them before, the process consists of hard cooking an egg, wrapping the egg in a pork sausage mixture (with herbs and spices), then breading it with flour, egg and bread crumbs and deep frying it  It's like deep fried breakfasty goodness in a little package.  Apparently it's great hangover food and very popular over the UK (you can even find them prepackaged in grocery stores).  I took a pic with my camera but it didn't come out great, so here's a pic from the web:

I find it quite funny that it looks like there is a glass of scotch in the picture....  We served ours with Dijon mustard and I have to say they were delicious (and Chef raved - which is always a good thing).  The recipe is below - try it out!

Scotch Eggs
yields 4 servings

1 cup breakfast sausage
1/2 tsp fresh sage, chopped
1/2 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
4 hard cooked, peeled eggs
all purpose flour (for breading)
1 egg, beaten
dry bread crumbs (for breading)
corn oil for frying

1.  Combine the breakfast sausage, herbs, worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper in a bowl.
2.  With lightly floured hands, divide the sausage mixture into four equal portions.  Flatten each portion into a thin patty.  Dust the eggs with flour and wrap each egg in a portion of the sausage meat.  Be sure the meat is even thickness and there are no cracks.
3.  Bread the sausage covered eggs by dipping them in flour, egg wash and breadcrumbs.
4.  Deep fry the eggs for apporximately 7-8 minutes at 350ºF or until sausage meat is fully cooked.  The eggs may be finished in the oven if they begin to get too dark in the fryer.
5.  Serve the eggs halved or quartered lengthwise, hot or cold, with Dijon mustard.

I didn't get to make the Hollandaise sauce for the eggs benedict (Ellen - I'll send you the recipe!) - I'm very interested in perfecting the mother sauces... but I can try them from home.

Have any of you spent any time in a foreign country and tried something really different from your usual diet?  If so, please share your stories!

Chow for now! :)