Jessica Kruger: A hearty scotch egg recipe

My name is Jessica Kruger and in September 2014 I opened ETHOS - a fast casual dining concept just off Oxford Street, London. Since I became vegan in 2012, I found myself increasingly frustrated with the lack of exciting, interesting options when eating out, and so wanted to launch a meat-free restaurant that gave diners real choice. 

At ETHOS we strive to create vibrant and deliciously different food, taking inspiration from across the

world, and operating a pay-by-weight system giving customers real flexibility on what, and how much, they eat.

Of course, to make sure our dishes look and taste as good as they can it’s important that we work around the seasons and this is something the chefs at the restaurant and I are always considering.

For the next six months I’ll be sharing some of our favourite recipes in this blog, using a star seasonal ingredient, from the delightfully crisp and crunchy baby gem in the summer to heartier leeks, swedes & turnips in the colder months.

December's star ingredient

Growing up in Australia, the festive season that I knew was often accompanied by a heatwave. Beach barbeques, sand and sunburn was the typical order of the day on December 25.

However despite the cold, the grey skies and how commercial this time of year tends to become, December in the Northern Hemisphere is still one of my favourite times of year. I love the way the year sprints to an end, with so much anticipation:  there are Christmas lights, dinners with friends and families, sumptous and indulgent food, holidays, the hope of what the New Year will bring.

In order to celebrate this time of the year, we’re changing the menu at Ethos to feature a lot of festive and wintertime recipes. We’ve also given our most popular menu item – our Scotch egg – a festive touch. As you’ll see in this recipe, we use in season parsnips, as well as other hearty warming winter vegetables like sweet potato and butternut squash. Cranberries also feature for a touch of sweetness in an otherwise wholly hearty and savoury meal.

For the home chef, Scotch eggs can be quite a time consuming and daunting undertakings, however I’ve elaborated a lot on each step in the following recipe to help you make a success of your festive Ethos-inspired Scotch egg.

Good luck and happy holidays !

FESTIVE SCOTCH EGG

Makes about 10 eggs

Prep time: 50 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

10 soft boiled eggs

1 KG Sweet potato – in approx 1 cm cubes

1 KG parsnip – in approx 1 cm cubes

1 KG butternut squash - in approx 1 cm cubes

small handful of dried cranberries (about 30g)

salt & pepper to taste

For the egg wash & pané

All purpose flour (for dusting eggs)

8 - 10 eggs (for egg wash)

4 cups of breadcrumbs (for pané)

6 cups of vegetable oil for deep frying

Method

Bring water in a large pot to the boil and soft boil the eggs in batches of three for 5 minutes and 20 seconds.  Plunge the eggs in to iced water to cool, then peel the shells off and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200°C . Once at temperature, place a ceramic or metal bowl in the bottom of the oven with a cup of water in it to create steam when you roast the vegetables.

Grease a metal baking tray and evenly spread out the cubed sweet potato, parsnip and butternut squash. Roast for 12 minutes.

Remove the vegetables and let cool. In a large mixing bowl, mash them about 60%, so that they are no longer in cubes, but not so much that they entirely lose their shape. Lightly season with salt and pepper to taste.

On a chopping board, lay out two layers of cling film, about 30 cm long. Put the two sheets one on top of the other.

Dust each egg in flour.

Take a good handful of the vegetable mix, place it in the middle of the cling film and pat it out a little, until it is about 1.5 cm thick. Place the soft boiled egg in the middle. Put your hands underneath the cling film and slowly and gently shape the vegetable mix up around the egg, to enclose it fully. Shape it in to a nice big egg shape, firmly but gently compressing the mix around the egg. Gather the ends of the cling film and twist them to create a ball. Further shape the mix around until you have a nice scotch egg shape.

Unravel the eggs from the cling film and place them to rest, ambient, about 10 minutes.

Toss the formed scotch egg in flour, then dunk it in the egg wash, then roll it in the bread crumbs. Gently reshape the egg to ensure it has not deformed in the process.

Repeat the process: dunk each egg in the egg wash and roll in bread crumbs. Reshape if necessary.

Heat the oil to 140-150 ° C and deep fry each egg about 5 minutes, or until golden brown.

Finish off the egg in the oven  160°C for 3-4 minutes to ensure it is nice and warm and cooked through inside.

Ready to serve. We like to cut our eggs in half when serving, to reveal the great colours and the runny yolk.

I hope you enjoy reading the recipes and please feel free to tweet us any finished dishes, questions or comments to @EthosFoods

The idea for ETHOS came about in 2012, when Australian born Jessica became a vegan and, despite her love of trying new foods and eating out, found herself increasingly frustrated with the lack of options available when dining out, especially in comparison to the rest of the world. Seeing a gap in the market, and at just 26 years old, Jessica was inspired to create a new all-day dining experience focused around a meat-free global menu that gives customers real choice in what they eat, how much they eat and how they pick and mix it.

ETHOS opened in September 2014 and is a fast-casual dining concept, which focuses on deliciously different meat-free food from around the world, served in a sophisticated and contemporary setting. For more information visit www.ethosfoods.com