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Here's how to make scotch eggs by Tim Anderson, MasterChef winner.
Transcript
00:00 Hi everybody, I'm Tim Anderson. I run a restaurant in Brixton called Nanban. I also wrote a book called Nanban.
00:06 It's all about what we call Japanese soul food.
00:10 So that's quite lovely, hearty, comforting Japanese food as opposed to your lighter, delicate Japanese food.
00:17 Today, I'm gonna show you how to make a scotch egg, but not just any scotch egg.
00:22 This is actually the third best scotch egg in London.
00:25 And that's true. This won third place in the scotch egg challenge this year.
00:31 So it's a damn good scotch egg.
00:33 So this scotch egg is not strictly traditional.
00:40 I wanted to incorporate some flavors from our ramen that we do at Nanban.
00:45 And the egg itself is very flavorful. I'll show you how to do those later on.
00:50 But we're gonna start with our mince mixture first. So we've got some pork mince here.
00:55 Try not to use anything too lean. You have to cook this for quite a while.
00:58 It tends to dry out if you get mince that's too lean. So get a nice fatty pork mince.
01:02 Start with that. And I've got some spring onions, just a couple of them.
01:08 So you're gonna finely slice.
01:10 Then we've got some garlic.
01:18 Lots of it. About nine cloves.
01:22 Because that garlicky pork flavor is what makes ramen so delicious.
01:27 So we're gonna just roughly chop this.
01:30 All right, that'll do.
01:38 So that all goes in to the pork mince as well.
01:43 Then we've got some bamboo shoots.
01:50 So bamboo shoots, really interesting flavor I think. Really essential in ramen.
01:55 Very, very savory. Hard to describe really, but really nice.
01:58 Works beautifully with pork again. So we're gonna roughly chop these as well.
02:02 This will help keep the mince nice and juicy as well. There's a lot of water in the bamboo shoots.
02:07 All right, so then we're gonna season this as well.
02:14 Salt. Plenty of salt.
02:19 And white pepper.
02:21 I always use white pepper. I don't really know why. If you like black pepper better, that's fine.
02:26 I just think the flavor works really well with pork.
02:28 And then we've got one very special ingredient. Not very Japanese at all.
02:35 Not very Japanese, but being in Brixton, we use a lot of these.
02:39 This is a scotch bonnet chili. Find them all over Brixton market.
02:43 They're very hot, so be careful. But they're really, really delicious.
02:48 They have a fantastic sort of full-on fruity flavor.
02:51 We're gonna use just half, deseeded, because they are very, very punchy.
02:56 A little bit goes a long way.
02:58 And remember, after you handle scotch bonnets or any spicy chili, to wash your hands.
03:03 Especially before touching your eyes.
03:05 So this gets very finely sliced and then chopped up.
03:09 Because what you don't want is getting a big mouthful of this in the pork mince.
03:13 You want to have it nice and evenly distributed throughout.
03:16 So that goes in and oh my god, even the smell of that is spicy. I don't know how, but it is.
03:22 It's just fantastic. I love scotch bonnets.
03:25 So that's our pork mince.
03:28 We're gonna mash up, work everything through.
03:31 We've got lots of spring onions, lots of bamboo shoots, lots of garlic, salt, white pepper,
03:37 and that fierce little scotch bonnet chili.
03:41 This is going to be really good.
03:44 So that is nice and mixed well.
03:47 Next we have to wrap it around our eggs.
03:50 So, almost every ramen dish we do at Nanban is a soy marinated egg, an Aditaba.
03:56 They're very easy to make. We've made ours ahead of time.
03:59 But basically they're boiled eggs and we always boil them for 6 minutes and 20 seconds.
04:04 That's from a fridge cold temperature.
04:06 And they're small eggs. So if you're using large eggs or eggs that are at room temperature,
04:10 you have to adjust the boiling time accordingly.
04:12 So just bear that in mind when you boil eggs.
04:14 Also you can make it runnier, you can make it less runny, however you like it, just by playing with those timings.
04:19 I like this consistency for a scotch egg so that it's not too runny, but you get a nice gooey center in that yolk.
04:25 These get marinated in soy sauce, rice vinegar, and mirin, which is a sweet cooking sake for a day.
04:33 And they become this lovely brown color. They have so much flavor, it's amazing.
04:38 So the way you make these into scotch eggs is you grab some of your mince,
04:44 and you sort of first shape it into a kind of meatball.
04:47 Flatten it out into a nice big patty, like that.
04:53 Take an egg, sort of wrap the mince around it.
04:57 Make sure it's really well covered and there aren't any gaps in the mince.
05:02 Because then when you fry, that gap will widen and you'll end up frying that egg directly, it'll be exposed.
05:07 Alright, so that's how you start with a scotch egg.
05:12 And you just repeat for the rest of the eggs.
05:17 Alright, so there's our eggs wrapped in mince, ready to be pankoed and then deep fried.
05:35 Okay, so we've got our lovely marinated eggs all wrapped in that very flavorful pork mince.
05:40 Now we're going to breadcrumb them.
05:42 So it's a standard pane job.
05:47 Eggs.
05:49 Beat these up.
05:58 We've got some strong white bread flour.
06:04 You can use plain flour as well, that's fine.
06:06 But for some reason, strong flour just seems to make a better adhesive when you panko.
06:11 And also it seems to have a better crunch, I don't really know why.
06:14 But that's just what I've found.
06:16 So, we're going to start with the flour.
06:18 Then the egg.
06:24 Let the egg sort of sit in that egg for a little while,
06:27 so that the egg really soaks into the flour and forms a kind of glue.
06:32 Alright.
06:34 Then the egg goes into the panko and gets tossed through.
06:43 Panko, by the way, is Japanese breadcrumbs.
06:45 They're coarser, they're flakier, and I think just better generally than your average breadcrumb.
06:52 You can get them at any Asian supermarket. Some of the big supermarkets have them these days as well.
06:56 But if you can't get them, normal breadcrumbs are just fine.
06:59 There we go.
07:01 Four lovely panko-coated pork-wrapped scotch eggs ready to be deep-fried.
07:10 Alright, so we're going to deep-fry these scotch eggs.
07:13 A few safety tips first.
07:15 First of all, when you're deep-frying at home, use a big, deep pot.
07:19 You want the sides of the pot to come up several inches above the surface of the oil,
07:23 so in case it bubbles up, it doesn't overflow.
07:25 This is especially important if you're using a gas hob with an open flame,
07:29 because I've seen it happen when oil overflows onto a flame and it just turns into a column of fire, basically.
07:35 So be careful.
07:36 Also use a thermometer. With these in particular, because you have to cook them kind of carefully.
07:41 It's not difficult, but you want to cook them at a precise temperature,
07:44 because you need to cook the pork all the way through without cooking the egg anymore,
07:48 because we already cooked that exactly how we want it, nice and gooey yolk in the middle.
07:51 So I've got a thermometer here. This is just a candy thermometer.
07:55 You can use a probe thermometer as well.
07:58 Obviously, if you have a deep fryer at home, you can use that with a built-in thermostat.
08:01 We want this to be at about 160.
08:04 It's a bit high right now, but the temperature will come down when we drop the eggs in.
08:07 So we are going to go for it.
08:10 Carefully lower these into the oil.
08:13 And they're going to cook for about 8 minutes.
08:25 So these eggs have been cooking for about 8 minutes.
08:31 And they're looking amazing. They're looking like that.
08:35 Nice, rich, deep golden brown.
08:38 If you have a probe thermometer, a meat thermometer, now is the time to use it.
08:43 You just want to stick it into the mince itself, not into the egg.
08:46 And it should read about 60 degrees at least.
08:49 65 if you're being safe. Certainly no less than 55.
08:52 That would be very rare pork, which is not nice.
08:55 Whoa! Nearly lost one.
09:00 Yeah, we'll lift these out.
09:04 Drain them on a paper towel or a rack.
09:07 So like any meat, you do want to let these rest for a bit.
09:10 Because right now, all the juices in that meat is racing around.
09:14 It's all boiling and crazy. If you cut into it now, it'll all just leak out onto the plate.
09:18 So let these sit for at least 5 minutes. Let them cool down.
09:21 Actually, these will be fine at room temperature.
09:24 You can let them cool down completely, make them ahead of time, serve them as a snack.
09:28 Have them with beer. They're amazing.
09:30 But they are really, really good when they're hot and fresh.
09:33 But do let them rest. And then we slice and serve.
09:36 Okay, so the eggs have been fried. They're all lovely and foxy brown.
09:40 And now they've rested, so it's the moment of truth.
09:47 Oh yeah. That is a thing of beauty. I'm very happy with that.
09:52 And you know it's going to be good just by looking at it.
09:54 It's got literal layers of flavor.
09:56 It's got the crunchy crumb, it's got the juicy meat with all that garlic and spring onion and chili and bamboo.
10:01 And it's got the lovely soy marinated egg and the yolk itself.
10:05 I mean, this is fine as is. There's so much flavor.
10:12 But we always serve it with a little bit of tonkatsu sauce.
10:17 That's Japanese brown sauce.
10:19 But anything that's kind of sweet and tangy like that would work.
10:23 Normal brown sauce, a bit of ponzu, citrus, soy dip, or hot mustard.
10:28 English mustard would be great.
10:30 It's a pub snack after all.
10:32 But it's quite the pub snack.
10:35 [Closing music]
10:41 (upbeat music)