Scotch Devils

Scotch Devil

Makings There be eggs Ready for the cooking

There's been a lot of build up. Probably too much. It's a scotch egg, made with those pickled "deviled" eggs that I've been talking about for two weeks. So it's a Scotch Deviled Egg, or a Scotch Devil for short.

Back to the salt thing I was talking about in the first post. I put half a tablespoon of salt in this whole thing, but it's still bursting with flavor.

Here's how it go:

Filling

5-6 "Deviled" Eggs

Meat part

1.25 pounds ground turkey

.5 tbs salt

1 tsp cayenne  pepper

1 tsp crushed red pepper

some ground pepper

2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1/4 tsp ginger powder

Coating

1 egg (beaten) for wash

breadcrumbs with cayenne pepper

Scotch Eggs are usually made with sausage meat, and you could do that here. I didn't have any. And I didn't have any sage, which would have helped. But it's ok, because lots of hot spicy spice!

The process is pretty obvious.

1. Mix up the Meat part.
2. Wrap up your eggs in it (I only had 5 because I used one to test my eggs).
3. Mix some cayenne into the bread crumbs
4. Roll the meated eggs, one at a time, in the egg then the bread crumbs.
5. Bake them at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes.

And they really do come out very tasty. The capsaicin hits first, then the vinegar from the pickled egg. Then the egg from egg. I dig it. I'll dig it again.

"Deviled" Eggs

"Deviled" Egg

Brown on the outside Here's a pile

Remember dem eggs we set ta picklin? Well, they sher did pickle up real good, I tell you what.

Seriously though, this is after a little less than a week on the shelf in the pantry. They went a bit rubbery on the outside, and I expect the'd be rubbery all the way through if I left them longer. All the spices turned them a medium brown.

Remember, these are supposed to be spicy. In fact, they're supposed to be a pickled version of deviled eggs.

But they spicy flavor was not that strong. Possibly because the spices settled out after the first day or so. I either need to figure out an emulsification strategy or an agitation strategy. Or give up on making this the spicy part.

The spicy part? Of what? Oh, wouldn't you like to know. But that's the next post.

In the mean time, let's talk about the recipe for these.

3/4 cup cider vinegar

1/4 cup malt vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

1 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp crushed red pepper

1/4 onion

1 jalapeño

6 eggs

Boil the eggies, let them cool, remove the shells. Put all the other stuff in a pot, boil it for a bit, let it cool. Put the eggs in a jar, put the juice in the jar, seal the jar. Leave it in a cool place for about a week. And I mean 'cool' temperature wise. It's not sufficient to leave it in the presence of the Fonz for a week.

Keep in mind, this recipe is a work in progress, but I'm pretty sure it won't kill you. But no promises.

It Smells Like Spicy Easter In Here

Deviling Eggs

Devil Spices The Ceremony Is About to Commence Joined

I had this idea, right. It's not going to be ready for some days, but I can't wait to start talking about it. Consider this a preview.

So here's my fundamental dilema. Point 1: My rickety old cardiovascular thingamy tends to pour on the psi. Point 2: A need for weird prepared foods is the very core of my being.

Overstated point 2 a bit. To be honest it's more like the D'' layer.

Anyway. The point is that 1 & 2 don't go together very well. This is because most prepared foods, weird or not, are basically just flavored salt.

One day last week I got a sandwich from sbux and noticed that it accounted for 47% of the recommended salt intake for the day. That sounds like something I'm making up. But I'm not. Not at all. So I think, maybe, before the blood just erupts from my temples, that I need to take charge of the whole show.

The solution to my dilema is simple, if not easy. I prepare my own ridiculous food (I know, you're shocked, right?) sans salt.

And lo, these spicy pickled eggs have no added salt. And probably they'll have some flavor. I dunno. I'm just winging this. I made the recipe up as I went, while looking at this.

We'll know in about a week. That's when the fun really begins. That's when we move on to phase 2. heeeee!

Shelved

Onigiri at BibimBap [Joomuk-bap]

BibimBap is in the spot formerly occupied by Bento Kudasai. The place has changed owners, names etc. several times in the past year or two. I used to be called Grab N Bowl, which I never went to because it was called Grab N Bowl. BibimBap is apparently new enough that nobody has interneted it yet. I'm not going to be the one. At least not today.

Anyway, I thought I'd stop in for a light breakfast. Onigiri breakfast.

spicy tuna, fried anchovy, crab meat

Yes, that's an anchovy's head. Fried Anchovy joomuk-bap. crab meat joomuk-bap spicy tuna joomuk-bap

This being a Korean place, I think it's probably more properly called joomukbob or joomuk-bap. And, indeed, these are not the triangles of rice with stuff in the middle that I was expecting.

Not that I'm complaining. These things were good.

Well, the crab and the spicy tuna were fantastic. The fried anchovy was just a bit much.

Because it was a giant ball of fried anchovies.

A. Giant. ball of fried anchovies.

Heads and all. Now, I like weird preserved fish things as much as the next man. But no. Don't think I'm having it again.

Other stuff, yeah. I'll go back for the other stuff.

Chocolate Orange Toasty

The best thing ever

cali style sweet orange marmalade ooooh yeah [smashes through wall]

Oh, Leffy done did it again.

Culinary history is happening right here. right now.

Your classic PB&J has many variations, but they all fall in to the larger "nut butter and sweet fruit preserves sandwich" category. So does this. It is the OM&N, the Orange Marmalade and Nutella sandwich.

It is made, as you can see, from California Style Sweet Orange marmalade, Nutella, and white toast. It goes together like a standard PB&J on toast. And it is the best thing ever.

I'm not even joking. It is literally and objectively the best thing ever to happen in the history of the universe. It even surpasses the Raspberry Jam and Nutella sandwich (not an easy feat).

You're welcome.

Peasecods

The cook shop also sold... in the summer peasecods, fresh peas boiled in their pods which you ate like artichoke leaves, dragging the peas away from the pod, but first dipping them into melted butter with added salt, pepper and vinegar. (This was called 'scaldings of peas', still being sold in exactly the same way in the 1850s.)

British Food - An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History [p.61], Colin Spencer, 2002

What we've got here is 12th century fast food.

The cook shops operated around the Thames as early as 1190, and probably earlier. There was also various meat dishes, including savory pies, but the peasecods have caught my interest because they seem pretty easy to make, and tasty to eat.  As soon as I can get my hands on some peas in the pods, I'll try this out. I may have to wait until summer; I've never seen frozen peasecods a la edamame.

I don't know that these were really quite as long lived as Spencer says. Henry Mayhew doesn't agree that they were still being sold this way in 1851. Emphasis mine.

The sale of hot green peas in the strees is of great antiquity... In many parts of the country it is, or was, customary to have "scaldings of peas," often held as a sort of rustic feast. The peas were not shelled, but boiled in the pod, and eaten by the bod being dipped in melted butter, with a little pepper, salt, and vinegar, and then drawn through the teeth to extract the peas, the pod being thrown away... None of the street-sellers, however, whom I saw, remembered the peas being vended in any other form than shelled and boiled as at present.

London Labour and the London Poor: a Cyclopaedia of the Condition and Earnings of Those That Will Work, Those That Cannot Work, and Those That Will Not Work. Volume 1 [p.180] Henry Mayhew, 1851

Disclaimer. Book titles link to amazon, who will give me money if you happen to buy the book. Where possible I link the page number directly to the related content (on google books or whatever).

Baking Bread

homemade toast

I enjoy making bread. It's a nice project for a cold day, and it's not really as complicated as all that when you have a good recipe. I tend to go for over complicated stuff, but this weekend I kept it simple. I chose a recipe has just four ingredients, yeast, water, salt and flour. It makes fantastically dense and yeasty bread.

collecting the stuff

I'm not going to actually give you the recipe, unless you ask. If you're in to it, you should get a book about baking. I have the book of bread, which is pretty good, but whatever.

I will show a lot of pictures though. Here we see the yeast going creamy.

yeast

yeast

yeast

Salt and a bunch of flour go in.

flour

flour

dough

It gets mixed up, and stuck on the counter.

dough

work surface

needing kneeding

Kneeding takes about ten minutes later. I don't have a machine or anything. Just good, old fashioned hands. Once it's nice and elastic, and all the gluten is activated, it rises for a couple hours. The stovetop has a warming pad, which sped up the rise.

mr dough, you're kneeded

he is risen

he is beaten down

After splitting the dough in half and putting it in pans, it rises another hour. Then, finally, actual baking.

he was panned

he rose again

baking

Then cooling. Then slicing. Then eating.

baked

cooling

sliced

Eating eating eating. Yum yum yum. This bread is fantastic with butter. It makes a pretty good sandwich too. I could see myself eating this stuff as my primary bread. I'll be making it again.