Rabbit Scotch Egg
Ingredients:
200 g ground Rabbit meat
150 g smoked bacon
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
1 sprig fresh rosemary, leaves picked and very finely chopped
1 sprig fresh sage, leaves picked and very finely chopped
1 whole nutmeg, for grating
Sea salt
Ground pepper
3 handfuls plain flour
2 free-range eggs, beaten
125 g white breadcrumbs
12 free-range quail's eggs
Vegetable oil, roughly 2 litres
1 new potato, for testing
Directions:
Put the kettle on to boil. Grind the rabbit meat and bacon and mix it together. Season with the paprika, the chopped herbs, a few gratings of nutmeg and a little salt and pepper, then use a fork to mash it all up. Put out your bowls of flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs.
Carefully put the quail's eggs into a small pan. Once the kettle boils, pour in the boiling water straight away and cook for 2 minutes, no longer. Move the pan to the sink and run cold water over the eggs for 2 to 3 minutes. Tap, roll and – ever so gently – peel the shells off them. Do it under running water if it helps. You'll get quicker at peeling them as you go.
Take a marble-sized piece of ground meat and flatten it out in the palm of your clean hand until it's about 6cm in diameter. Pop an egg into the middle, then carefully shape and mould the meat up around the egg with your floured hands. You need to get into the routine of pulling up the sides, gently squeezing, moulding, patting and very gently squashing the meat around the egg. Repeat with all 12 eggs, then coat them well with flour. Transfer them to the bowl of beaten egg and coat well, then roll them in the breadcrumbs. They'll be more robust to hold now, so pat and hug them into shape. When they're all done, put them into a container and pop them into the fridge until needed.
When you're ready to cook, put a deep casserole-type pan on a medium high heat and fill it about 8cm deep with vegetable oil. Make sure you never fill a pan more than halfway up. Add a piece of potato to help you gauge the temperature – it's ready once the potato turns golden and floats (or when the oil reaches 180°C on a thermometer). Carefully lower one wee Scotch egg into the pan. After about 4 minutes it should be golden and perfectly cooked through, so take it out of the pan and cut it in half to see if you should have cooked it for less or more time – once you know where you stand, you can cook the rest, in batches of 6 or less.
Transfer the cooked Scotch eggs to a plate lined with kitchen paper to drain, and serve scattered with a pinch of sea salt, alongside a pot of English mustard and a cold beer.
