The Scotch egg is an all-time classic British recipe, beloved in its homeland. If you are not from Britain, you might find it a big baffling. But it really is a brilliant recipe. Basically, it is an egg wrapped in a sausage. Simple and clever!
It comes out as a small and perfectly portable parcel of protein and fat. Ideal for a low-carb breakfast on the go or a quick snack.
Traditional recipe calls for the breadcrumbs coating for the eggs. For a low-carb version, we just swap breadcrumbs for almond flour, or just skip this step.
Low-carb Scotch eggs - basic method
This is a very quick and simple recipe. You just need to hard-boil the eggs, wrap them up in sausage meat and then either deep fry or bake them. Voilà!
Deep-frying is the traditional method for cooking Scotch eggs. However, I usually avoid deep-frying. Not because of the fat (I love fat!), but because exposing oil to very high temperatures can result in some unhealthy by-products.
So I personally prefer baking. My baked version turned out tasting perfectly authentic. So choose whatever method you prefer.
Sausage meat for Scotch eggs
Sausage meat is just seasoned minced pork. So you have several options:
- Buy ready-made sausage meat, or buy some nice sausages and squeeze the meat out of the skins. You need to be careful with this one. Many ready-made products have all sorts of non-meat ingredients added to them. Some of those can be high in carbs. So check the label and make sure the product is at least 98% meat.
- Make your own sausage meat. Get some 100% minced pork and add your favourite seasoning. I used salt, pepper and sage leaves. Make sure that your mince is nice and fatty. This is essential for nice taste. Lean pork will produce bland and unhappy Scotch eggs.
- Make your own pork mince. If you are a hardcore foodie, you can make your own mince from whole chunks of pork. Choose fatty cuts like pork shoulder and belly. Add seasoning as above.
The eggs part of Scotch eggs
I believe it's worth spending extra money on high-quality eggs. Eggs are great value for money anyway - you get a lot of protein, fat and vitamins for what you pay. In addition to the obvious ethical issues, there is also a selfish reason. Free-range organic eggs taste much better than those produced by the poor caged hens. So you can support responsible producers while enjoying better quality food.
I usually get Burford Brown eggs from Clarence Court farms. They really are magnificent eggs...
Eggs rant over. Obviously, you can just buy any eggs you like in line with your own egg principles. I won't judge you!
But I digress - let's back to the recipe.
Low-carb coating for the Scotch eggs
Our low-carb version of this recipe can't include the traditional breadcrumbs coating.
I swapped it for a mixture of almond flour and psyllium husks. This worked perfectly well. I haven't tried other options. I think any other nut flour would work ok.
The coating's role in this recipe is not essential, so you could just skips it altogether.
