If chocolate eggs really aren’t your thing this Easter, then how about trying something more savoury. The Scotch egg is officially on the comeback trail, its popularity seeing it appear on more and more restaurant and pub menus, but now there’s a creation to top them all.
Fortnum & Mason’s innovation chef Luke Turner has created the world’s largest Scotch egg (officially still pending with Guinness World Records), beating the previous record from Brown’s Hotel, London set in 2008. The gigantic golden orb weighs a whopping 6.955kg and required 6kg of sausage-meat, two-pints of egg wash and over 100g of panko breadcrumbs for the coating. The Ostrich egg alone weighed 1.7kg.
A Scotch egg for some may come as an unwelcome flashback to a forgotten childhood picnic. Indeed, thoughts are likely to carry grave images and give rise to a metallic taste in the mouth, but this spherical delight is a British institution, a real classic.
Inventors of the Scotch egg in 1738, it seems fitting that the record should be set by Fortnum & Mason and the honour returned home. Indeed, the snack is so popular at the F&M deli that they shift around one-hundred a week, including several varieties of egg: quails egg, hens egg, ducks egg, goose egg and Ostrich egg.
“It might seem a bit odd,” said Turner, “but when a F&M butcher challenged me to ‘Scotch’ an Ostrich egg, I had to do it.”
The real challenge came with not wrapping the Ostrich egg in sausage-meat or even lifting the monstrous wedge, but deep-frying. “We just didn’t have a deep-fryer big enough,” remarked Turner, “so we decided to wrap it in muslin and have two people lower it into a pot.”
Not content with the attempt, Turner says that he may give it another go. “I’m not completely satisfied,” said Turner, “I think it could be rounder, bigger!”
I thought that the following information may interest you David: Did you know that male shot putters have to throw a cast iron ball that is 16lbs (i.e., 7.26kg) in weight? That’s only slighltly heavier than Fortnum & Mason’s scotch egg!! Maybe if this egg were to be a hit and take off (literally) then the highland games could include it in next year’s competition! That’s one impressive egg!
That’s amazing! I couldn’t imagine trying to lob that Scotch egg. If F&M attempt the record for a pork pie, then do you fancy trying to create a record distance with it, James?
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Bloody hell, look at that scotch egg! Did you eat it all?