[Sca-cooks] Scotch Eggs- rebuttal

[Johnna Holloway]

And to that end, some recipes for Scotch Eggs from the Georgian and
Victorian eras:

 From A new system of domestic cookery By Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell
In 1814 the recipe reads:

Scotch Eggs.

Boil hard five pullet's eggs, and without removing the white, cover
completely with a fine relishing forcemeat, in which, let scraped ham,
bear a due proportion. Fry of a beautiful yellow brown, and serve with a
good gravy in the dish.

By 1847 it reads:

SCOTCH EGGS.

Boil hard five pullets' eggs, and, without removing the white,cover
completely with a fine relishing forcemeat, in which, let scraped ham,
or chopped anchovy bear a good proportion. Fry of a beautiful yellow
brown, and serve with a good gravy in the dish.

from A new system of domestic cookery By Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell.

Note that anchovy has crept in.
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A more complete recipe from 1908-

Scotch Eggs

6 hard-cooked eggs.
Salt and pepper to taste.
two-thirds cup stale bread crumbs.
one half cup milk.
1 cup minced ham or other meat.
Egg and bread crumbs.
Frying fat.

Cook the eggs twenty minutes in water just below the boiling point,
stand in cold water for half an hour, then remove the shells and wipe
the eggs quite dry.

Cook the half cup of bread crumbs in. the milk till thick, add the
seasoning and meat and mix all together to form a rather stiff paste.
Take a portion of this and press around one of the eggs smoothly with
the hand, having the paste of equal thickness all over, and continue
till the eggs are covered. Take a raw egg with one tablespoon of water
and beat lightly; dip each of the prepared eggs into this and cover
every particle with the raw egg. As soon as covered, drop onto a paper
containing stale bread crumbs, coat with these and fry in deep fat till
golden brown. Cut in halves, stand cut side up, and serve plain or with
white or tomato sauce or gravy.

The Rumford complete cook book, By Lily Haxworth Wallace, Rumford
Chemical Works, 1908.
---------------

Beeton's version:

SCOTCH EGGS.

1666. Ingredients.—6 eggs, 6 tablespoonfuls of forcemeat No. 417, hot
lard, 4 pint of good brown gravy.

/Mode.—/Boil the eggs for 10 minutes ; strip them from the shells, and
cover them with forcemeat made by recipe No. 417 ; or substitute pounded
anchovies for the ham. Fry the eggs a nice brown in boil«? lard, drain
them before the fire from their greasy moisture, dish then, and pour
round from J to 1 pint of good brown gravy. To enhance the appearance of
the eggs, they may be rolled in beaten egg acJ sprinkled with bread
crumbs ; bnt this is scarcely necessary if they are carefully fried. The
flavour of the ham or anchovy in the forcemeat must preponderate, as it
should be very relishing.
/Time./—10 minutes to boil the eggs, 5 to 7 minutes to fry them.
/Average cost. Is. id. Sufficient /for 3 or 4 persons. /Seasonable /at
any time.

The book of household management By Isabella Mary Beeton, 1863.
-------------------------

Last but not least here is Meg Dods..
In 1826
Scotch Eggs.
—Five eggs make a dish. Boil them as for salad. Peel and
dip them in beat eggs and cover them with a forcemeat made of grated
ham, chopped anchovy, crumbs, mixed spices, &c. pry .them nicely in good
clarified dripping, and serve .with a gravy sauce in a tureen.

In 1828 the recipe reads:
Scotch Eggs.
—Five eggs make a dish. Boil them as for salad. Peel and
dip them in beat egg, and cover them with a forcemeat made of grated
ham, chopped anchovy, crumbs, mixed spices, &c. Fry them nicely in good
clarified dripping, and serve with a gravy-sauce in a tureen.

In 1862 it reads:

571. Scotch Eggs.
—Five eggs make a dish. Boil them hard. Shell and dip
them in beat egg, and cover them with a forcemeat made of grated ham,
chopped anchovy, crumbs, mixed spices, etc. Fry them nicely in good
clarified dripping or lard, and serve them with a gravy sauce
separately.—

The cook and housewife's manual, by Margaret Dods. [&c.]. By Christian
Isobel Johnstone.

------
Oxford Reference Online mentions:

"The first known printed recipe for it appears in M.E. Rundell's /New
System of Domestic Cookery/ (1809): ‘Boil hard five pullet's eggs, and
without removing the white, cover completely with a fine relishing
forcemeat.’ Its Scottish origin is perhaps pointed up by its inclusion
in Meg Dods's /Cook and Housewife's Manual/, published in Edinburgh in
1826. This describes the eggs being eaten hot with gravy, a method of
consumption echoed by Mrs Beeton in 1861, but a hundred years on their
role had become that of a convenient cold snack eaten in pubs, on
picnics, etc." "Scotch egg" /An A-Z of Food and Drink/. Ed. John Ayto.

Rundell is the first recipe that I found tonight. Fenton doesn't mention
them in The Food of the Scots.

Johnnae


Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
> I wonder if a single one of these chefs knows that Scotch eggs are 
> _supposed_ to be made with chopped ham, and that sausage meat (as with 
> toad in the hole) is the lazy person's expedient?
> I don't believe pork sausage meat has ever been very popular in 
> Scotland, except possibly in the lowlands...
> Adamantius