A Salad of Scotch Quails' Eggs in Straw-Potato Nests

I had never tasted a proper home-made Scotch egg until I married an Englishman*, and his mother Audrey Rayner made a clutch of them for a picnic. They were the shape of small rugby balls, crisp and golden, and inside the shells of spicy pork-sausage meat were whole eggs cooked to perfection, their yolks as yellow and fluffy as the centre of a daisy. This is a dish that takes a bit of effort and split-second timing. (And if you leave out the potato nests, these make excellent low-carb snacks.)

Scotch Quails' Eggs in Straw-Potato Nests

I was instantly smitten by this classic English picnic food and I ate three of them, with dabs of Mrs Balls Chutney, as I sat on on a tartan blanket on the slopes of Table Mountain, swigging warm tea from a (tartan-patterned) thermos flask. Audrey was probably a bit dismayed at how many of the Scotch eggs I wolfed that day, but I couldn't help myself.  They were very, very good, like all the proper English food that flowed from Audrey's kitchen, and I'm really sorry I didn't plague her for her secret formula before she passed away a few years ago. She would willingly have given me the recipe - really good and accomplished home cooks never mind sharing - but somehow I never got around to asking her.

I've done my best to recreate that delicious porky casing in this recipe. It's a daintier version of Audrey's one, using quails' eggs, newfangled salad greens and a nest of straw potatoes, and while it may not have the retrolicious appeal of cold Scotch eggs swaddled in tin foil and eaten while ants crawl over your legs, I promise there will be a few squeals of delight - from children, at least - when you bring the dish to the table.

I am interested to learn that the English department store Fortnum and Mason takes credit for inventing the Scotch egg in 1738.  I can't find any evidence online to back up this claim, nor any reference explaining why they are called 'Scotch'  eggs.  Wikipedia claims that the first printed recipe for Scotch eggs appeared in Maria Rundell's 1807 book A New System of Domestic Cookery, and here it is. Mrs Rundell's recipe is just five lines long, and uses anchovies or 'scraped ham' to flavour the forcemeat casing for the eggs, although it makes no mention of a breadcrumb coating.  'Fry of a beautiful yellow brown,' she says, 'and serve with good gravy in the dish.'

Quail's eggs, being so small, need to be cooked with some care so you don't end up with yolks like yellow bullets. For eggs with perfect centres, and no nasty green rings, exactly follow the cooking time I've given below. I have specified more eggs than you need to allow for breakages and other mishaps.

Salad of Scotch Quail's Eggs in Straw Potato Nests
20 quails’ eggs
12 good-quality pork sausages
6 fresh sage leaves, very finely minced
the finely grated zest of a lemon
a pinch of cayenne pepper (or more, to taste)
a pinch of allspice (optional)
a quarter of a whole nutmeg, very finely grated
salt and milled black pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup (125 ml) flour
1 cup fine dry breadcrumbs (Panko crumbs are ideal)
6 potatoes
sunflower oil for deep frying
2 bags of mixed green salad leaves, or enough for 8 people
a vinaigrette or salad dressing of your choice

Bring a large, deep pot of water to a gentle rolling boil.  Put all the eggs in a large metal sieve, immerse it very slowly in the boiling water, then very gently tilt the sieve so all the eggs roll out into the boiling water. (If you do this too quickly, the water will come off the boil and your timing will be ruined.) Boil the eggs for exactly two minutes and 20 seconds (set a timer!). Pour off the boiling water and fill the pot to the brim with cold water from the tap. Leave the pot under a trickling cold tap for 7 minutes, allowing the water to spill over the edges.

Drain the eggs, gently crack the shells and peel them. The shells should come away easily, but if they do not, peel them under cold running water. Pat the eggs dry and set aside.

Squeeze the meat out of the sausage skins and place in a mixing bowl. Add the sage, lemon zest, cayenne pepper, allspice and nutmeg, mix well, and season with salt and black pepper. Before you enclose the eggs, check the seasoning of the sausage meat by pinching off a marble-sized piece, flattening it into a patty and frying it in hot oil. Add more salt, pepper and spice, if necessary, and to taste.

Divide the sausage meat into 16 equal portions. Roll a portion into a ball, flatten it in the palm of your hand to make a patty and put a cooked quail’s egg on top.  Gently wrap the the meat around the egg to enclose it completely, pinching the mixture to close any gaps. Now roll the ball delicately between your palms to create a pleasing egg shape. Repeat with the remaining eggs.  Put the eggs on a plate, cover with clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes to firm up.

Place the flour on one large plate, the beaten eggs on another, and the breadcrumbs on the third plate. Roll the Scotch eggs in the flour and shake to remove the excess. Dip the eggs in the beaten egg yolk, then roll them gently in the breadcrumbs, patting down gently so that the crumbs stick.  Half fill a narrow-sided pot with sunflower oil and heat it to 165ºC. (If you don’t have a cooking thermometer, click here for deep-frying tips). Fry the eggs, four or five at a time, for four and a half minutes, or until crisp and golden brown. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.

Next make the straw potatoes. Using a mandolin or a very sharp knife, cut the potatoes – no need to peel them – into slices 3 mm thick. Place the slices in stacks and cut them vertically into very slim 'matchsticks'. Dry the matchsticks by squeezing them gently in a clean tea towel.  Heat the oil again and fry the matchstick potatoes, in three or four batches, for 2-3 minutes, or until they are golden and crisp. Drain well on several layers of kitchen paper and season generously with salt and pepper (or any highly seasoned salt you have in your cupboard).

To assemble the salad, arrange the leaves on a large salad platter. Pile the matchstick potatoes in a ring in the centre of the platter, and heap the warm Scotch eggs in the middle. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the leaves and serve immediately.

Serves 8. 

* My husband may have been born an Englishman, but actually he only lived in England for 8 years, and has been a South African for 43 years. The only trace of English about him these days is his ridiculous passion for Manchester United, and his fondness for steamed puddings and blackcurrants. Oh, and he also says 'yoggit' and 'tea towel' not 'yo-gert' and 'dish cloth'.

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Steamed Ginger Pudding: classic English comfort food

If you were born in England in the first sixty years of the last century, you may get a tear in your eye when you hear the words 'steamed' and 'pudding'. On the other hand, if you were booted into a boarding school during your tender years, those two words may bring on spasms uncontrollable retching (but more of that later).

Sticky, lemon, ginger pud cloaked in custard.

My husband, born in the early Sixties in England, has lived in South Africa for almost 40 years, but is still hopelessly nostalgic about soft, cakey, syrupy steamed puddings, preferably cloaked in custard.

His soul - although thoroughly South African by now - continues to crave the gentle English comfort foods that he ate as a child, and, above all, he craves Proper Pudding. His late mother, Audrey Rayner, was an excellent and intuitive cook whose cooking style, though thoroughly and unashamedly English, had a lightness of touch and a finesse that completely abolishes any notions that traditional English food is stodgy, bland or boring. Audrey's almond tart is legendary in our family: try it for yourself.

This type of steamed pudding has a very long and interesting pedigree, and is a direct descendant of medieval and Elizabethan puddings. Containing shredded suet, meat, raisins, currants, spice and - later on - sugar, these mixtures were packed into sausage casings, stomach linings or linen, tied with string, and cooked in boiling water over an open range.

In her wonderful book Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book, Hilary Spurling remarks: 'The extraordinary thing about bag puddings is their longevity: they were hardly new inventions in 1604, and they retained a central position in English home cooking right up to the time of my mother and grandmother.'

Steamed and boiled puddings have made a modest showing over the past decade or so, as British celebrity chefs have plundered the past for inspiration, but they're still not mainstream enough to have made their way into the suburban kitchens of your average Jamie-and-Nigella-trained domestic cook. Perhaps this is because it seems like such a bother to have to steam a pudding (au contraire: it is astonishingly easy!). Maybe steamed puddings are just too old-fashioned (or inappropriate, if you live in a hot climate, as I do).

Or perhaps, as Hilary Spurling suggests, these puddings have lost favour because the associations with stodgy boarding-school food just run too deep: 'I suppose what finally did for them was the nauseating slatternly meanness of school and institutional food in wartime, and in the years of austerity that followed. People old enough to remember that time still have vivid memories of greasy, grey slabs of suet crust, slimy clothes and... congealed white fat on cold plates.'

Please don't be put off by this description: this pudding is so very good (and I speak as someone who never eats pudding, and only makes one if I'm trying to butter up my husband!).

I didn't have Audrey's original recipe for steamed ginger pudding, but I was determined to reproduce it, so I adapted a similar recipe (for 'Canary Pudding') from a book I think Audrey may have consulted: my own mum's first cookbook, Good Housekeeping's Picture Cookery, published in 1954. It took three tries for me to nail this recipe (the first attempt was too dry; the second too bland, and the third was Goldilocks-right, or so says my husband).

This pudding is best made in an old-fashioned glass pudding bowl of 1-litre capacity, but you can use a small, deep, square or circular ovenproof baking dish.

It's best served immediately, but you can make it in advance, set it aside, and steam it for another 20 minutes before you serve it.

Steamed Ginger Pudding

4 Tbsp (60 ml) golden syrup, warmed
8 small pieces preserved ginger, finely chopped
the finely grated zest and juice of a lemon (or an orange)
100 g unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (160 ml) white granulated sugar
2 large free-range eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup (160 ml) cake flour
2 tsp (10 ml) powdered ginger
½ tsp (2.5 ml) baking powder
a pinch of salt
a little milk (see recipe)

Put a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan or stock pot on the heat, add five centimetres of water and bring to the boil. Butter a sturdy glass pudding bowl, or a thick-walled ceramic dish with a capacity of 1 litre. Cut a circle of tin foil or parchment paper big enough to cover the dish and overlap the edges by at least 7 centimetres, and set aside. Have some string ready.

Pour the syrup into the bottom of the buttered pudding bowl (you may need to warm the syrup first if it's a cold day) and add the chopped ginger pieces. Sprinkle with lemon juice, but do not stir. Set aside.

Put the softened butter and sugar into a new, large mixing bowl and beat vigorously, with an electric mixer, if you have one, until fluffy and well combined. Add the beaten egg, in small dollops, beating well between each dollop. Sift the cake flour, ginger, baking powder and salt into the butter/sugar mixture. Have a cup of of milk standing nearby. Starting at one side of the bowl, and using the electric beater or a whisk, gradually incorporate dry ingredients into the wet mixture, adding just enough milk (two to three tablespoons of milk is usually is enough) to achieve a soft, dropping consistency. Stir in the lemon zest.

Pour the batter gently into the buttered pudding bowl, taking care not to disturb the syrup. Cover with the circle of tin foil, pressing its overlapping edge down over the outside of the bowl. Wrap the piece of string around the bowl just below its lip (or top edge), and make a tight knot. Put the bowl into the big pan of boiling water: the water should reach half-way up the sides of the bowl. Cover the pan, and adjust the heat so that the water remains at a gentle rolling boil.

Cook for an hour and twenty minutes, checking the water level now and then. Remove the pudding bowl from the boiling water and run a sharp knife around the edges of the pudding to loosen it. Invert the pudding bowl onto a warmed platter and give it a good shake so that the pudding tips out cleanly.

Serve with extra syrup and warm custard or cold whipped cream or - what the heck - both.

Serves 4.
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