Monday, June 23, 2014

Baked & Gluten Free Scotch Eggs

This British picnic food staple gets a gluten free makeover; plus it's baked and not fried!
These Baked & Gluten Free Scotch Eggs are a British picnic staple. From Anyonita Nibbles

Yield: 6 Scotch eggs
Prep time:
Cook time:

Baked & Gluten Free Scotch Eggs

One of the best things about being an expat is discovering new foods that don't even exist in the country you're from. Cue the Scotch egg. This tasty contraption is a sphere of decadence! Scotch eggs are mostly eaten cold, served at picnics, but I served mine warm and I've made it completely gluten free. You can still serve it at a picnic, though!


The first time I saw a Scotch egg was actually in winter. (While they are picnic grub; they're served year round in the North of England. I'm told they're not that popular down south, but I'm not sure.) My husband (back when we were dating) and I were visiting the town we would later get married in and stopped for a car picnic. He popped into the local convenience store and came back with a twin pack of Scotch eggs for himself. I was intrigued as he delved in to the breadcrumb and sausage coated boiled egg. It's certainly different and definitely not something you'd find at a 7Eleven in the states, but it's quintessentially British.

A Scotch egg is a boiled egg wrapped in sausage and breadcrumbs from Anyonita Nibbles


A few weeks ago, I attended the Ideal Home Show (the first time it ever came to Manchester!) and while wandering around the food section, I came across a brand of gluten free sausages that were incredible. I bought four packets and knew that I wanted to save one of the packets for something really special.

No British picnic is complete without a Scotch egg. This version is gluten free!

No one is going to tell you that Scotch eggs are posh. They're certainly not. As I've said, they're picnic food and like most other popular picnic items (sandwiches, wraps, pasta salads, tarts) they're not normally gluten free. It's picnic season and Coeliacs need options, too! That was the inspiration for this recipe, prompted by my involvement in the #ShortcutEggsperts campaign.

Perfect for a picnic: a tray of homemade Scotch eggs from Anyonita Nibbles

I served these gluten free Scotch eggs with a simple salad and lots of fresh strawberries and cherries to make a complete meal out of them.

Ingredients:

For the Scotch eggs
4 slices gluten free bread
6 gluten free sausages, any flavor
7 medium free range eggs
fresh parsley
pinch salt
pinch lemon pepper


Instructions:


Baked & Gluten Free Scotch Eggs


1. Boil six of the eggs for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and plunge the eggs into ice water to stop them cooking. Once cooled enough to handle, peel the eggs and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 200c/400f and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. 

Cut one end of the sausage to get the meat out for Gluten Free Scotch Eggs

3. Snip one end off of each sausage and squeeze the contents of the sausage onto a plate. Take care to keep the sausages separate as one sausage will be enough to cover one egg. You could use skinless sausages, but you may struggle to find skinless gluten free sausages.

Squeeze the sausage meat from the skin for Baked Scotch Eggs

4. Place an egg in the middle of the sausage meat and shape around the egg, cupping your hands to form a sphere. You should be able to cover 90% if not all of the egg in the sausage meat.

Wrap the sausage around the egg for Gluten Free Scotch Eggs from Anyonita Nibbles

5. Arrange the sausage-wrapped eggs on the baking tray so that they aren't touching. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and bake 10 minutes.

Sausage wrapped egg from Anyonita Nibbles

6. Beat the remaining egg in a small bowl and toast the slices of bread. Once the bread is toasted, tear it into manageable sized chunks and put it in a food processor along with some fresh parsley, salt and lemon pepper. Blitz the bread until the breadcrumbs are as coarse or fine as you like. Traditionally, Scotch eggs are made with fine bread crumbs, but I prefer mine a bit chunkier.

7. Roll the sausage-wrapped eggs in the beaten egg then in the breadcrumbs and return to the baking tray. Cook for an additional 12 to 15 minutes until the sausage is cooked through and the breadcrumbs are golden.

Gluten Free Scotch Eggs ready for their second bake from Anyonita Nibbles

8. Serve with a salad, fruit and other picnic accompaniments.

British picnic food: Scotch Eggs made Gluten Free from Anyonita Nibbles


3 comments:

  1. This actually look quite delicious! I have made my own gluten free sausage before and actually like it better!

    ReplyDelete
  2. WHAT?! I've never heard of such but you make it look so good!

    ReplyDelete

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