The Meatwave

The New Year has brought with it a spirit to try new things. While the nature of the blog requires me to cook different recipes constantly, at this point they're tending to become mostly variations on a theme. So it was actually not the easiest thing to come up with something completely different, but I finally found it in these barbecued scotch eggs—a recipe that ended up being equally challenging and rewarding.

That challenge came in the form of soft boiled eggs for me. Unless their deviled, I'm not a hard or soft boiled egg fan and actually have never made them in my life—although I've watched my wife do it on many occasions. So to start off this recipe, I had to gain experience in making and peeling soft boiled eggs.

The process of cooking isn't hard, and after scouring the internet for advice, I found the most agreed upon method with positive comments was to carefully lower eggs into gently simmering water and cook them for six minutes.

Once done, they're plunged into an ice bath to stop the cooking and let sit until completely cooled, about 15 minutes. After that, most recipes just say to peel, but they don't mention peeling soft boiled eggs is a bitch, especially for a novice. Out of the eight eggs I made, I was able to peel only one completely intact, and three more with only minor tears—all the others broke open, oozed yolk, and were rendered unusable.

I couldn't make enough scotch eggs for a crowd with really only one perfect specimen, so I went back and did another batch, cooking them one minute longer, knowing that I'd be trading off the ideal runny yolk for eggs that were a bit easier to peel. With this second batch, I also discovered a better peeling procedure than using my hands alone—cracking them first at the bottom and then sliding in a spoon helped remove the shell with less breakage. The longer cooking time and improved peeling process left me not one unusable egg.

So now I actually had way more eggs than I needed, but I figured I was bound to mess a few of these delicate eggs up in the next step of wrapping them in sausage, so I felt good about where I was at this point. I took a lot of care in the wrapping process though, and ended up pulling it off flawlessly. To wrap the eggs, I used pre-made bulk sausage—but for even better results, you can make your own—and broke off a piece about three ounces in weight. I then mashed the sausage into as thin of a layer as possible in one hand, placed the egg in the center, and carefully enclosed the egg in the meat, taking my time sealing the sausage closed and then rolling it between my hands to even it out.

With all the eggs wrapped, my main challenges were over and it was on to doing what I know how to do well—barbecue. I began giving these scotch eggs their barbecue stamp by coating them all over with one of my standard rubs.

Then they went into a smoker running at 250°F with a couple chunks of pecan wood. My goal was to just smoke them long enough to cook the sausage, but not further cook the eggs—I wanted as much runny yolk as possible.

The sausage looked pretty done and lightly browned after 40 minutes, at which time I brushed on a layer of barbecue sauce and let them continue to cook until that baked down nicely—another ten minutes.

Now was the moment of truth—did I achieve the balance between soft boiled egg and barbecue?

As you can see, it worked out relatively well. The photo above is one of the eggs cooked longer, so the yolk was soft, but not runny. The photo at the top of the post has one of the eggs cooked the more appropriate, shorter amount of time, and that one was absolutely perfect. In terms of flavor, these things were off the hook. Since I'm not a boiled egg fan, I actually paused before trying one, but my fellow eaters said these were more barbecue than egg, and they were right. They had an excellent sweet, tangy, and spicy barbecue flavor with the right amount of meat to back it up. The egg mostly introduced new textures that were an incredible change in the face of the mostly all meat items that are the norm for my 'cue. With a little more practice, I'm sure I can perfect the peeling of the ideal soft boiled egg and ensure I make these consistently better in the future. For now though, they symbolize a great way to start a new year that's sure to be filled with equally ambitious new grilling and barbecue adventures that I look forward to sharing with all of you.

Published on Tue Jan 5, 2016 by Joshua Bousel

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