Hanna Glasse, Forcemeat, & Scotch Eggs
A brief look at where Scotch eggs came from plus recipes.
Scotch eggs are one of my favorite snacks… bar foods? When I found a recipe for “forced eggs” in my reprint of Hannah Glasse’s 1805 edition of The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy and realized is was pretty similar to the Scotch egg, I knew I had to make them on The Davises Eat!
Who Was Hannah Glasse?
Hannah Glasse (1708-1770) was an English cookery book author known for The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. The first edition was published in 1747 and it became one of the most popular cookbooks of the 18th century. The 1805 edition was the first published in America although many copies had made their way here during Colonial times.
The recipe for “forced eggs” first appeared in the 1796 edition and is provided below. You can preview a digital copy of this edition on the Internet Archive. You can also purchase the 1805 reprint on Amazon.
What is Forcemeat?
Before we can dive into what a forced egg is, we first need to identify “forcemeat” and “forced”. Forcemeat (sometimes forced meat) appears in several cookery books from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Forcemeat is an emulsion of chopped or ground meat, fat, and a binder, used for pates, sausages, and other preparations. The four types are mousseline, straight, country-style, and gratin1.
The term “forced” is likely used here in place of “farced”, which is the French word for “stuffed”. Glasse’s forced eggs are essentially hard cooked eggs stuffed in forcemeat then fried. That sounds like an early version of a Scotch egg to me!
While there are many different types of forcemeat, sausage is one of the more familiar and is used in our modern Scotch egg recipes.
Scotch Eggs
One of the first - possible THE first - written recipe for Scotch Eggs is included in the 1808 cookery book A New System of Domestic Cookery by Maria Rundell, which can also be viewed on the Internet Archive. The recipe follows.
Boil six eggs for ten minutes, take off the shells, and wrap each egg in forcemeat seasoned with pepper, salt, and beaten mace. Boil them in a saucepan of lard for ten minutes, turning them frequently. Drain, and serve with or without gravy.
Notice the similarities to Hannah Glasse’s forced eggs, which are fried as opposed to boiled. Unlike our modern Scotch eggs, neither are dredged in breadcrumbs.
There is an Indian version of the kofta dish - Nargisi Kofta - that is stuffed with a hard-cooked egg. Many historians point to this as the origin of the Scotch egg. Given the timing of the first similar recipes appearing in English cookery books in conjunction with the East India Company, I can see where that might be the case.
There are a couple of other tales about the origin of the Scotch egg, which is not at all unusual for a dish that dates back several hundred years in our printed cookbooks. The truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle of all the stories. We may never know and that’s okay… I love all versions, no matter where they came from!
Scotch Eggs Recipe
Yield: 4 servings | Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
1 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup plain bread crumbs
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
4 soft-cooked (jammy) eggs, peeled
1 pound bulk country pork sausage
Directions
Heat 1 quart of oil in a Dutch oven or fryer to 350 degrees F. You will need enough oil to cover the eggs when frying, so use more based on the size of your pan.
Set up your three step dredging station. Place flour in one dish, egg in another, and bread crumbs in a third. Season each with salt and pepper.
Separate the sausage into four equal portions and patty each. Use wet hands to gently wrap a sausage patty up and around an egg and seal to close. Roll the egg in flour until it is coated, dip in the egg, the roll in the bread crumbs until coated and set aside. Repeat this until all four eggs are dredged.
Fry for 4 minutes and remove to a rack or a paper towel lined baking sheet to cool. Work in batches if not all four eggs will fit in your fryer. Serve with condiments of your choice.
Download both recipes from the episode
The Culinary Institute of America . (2011). The Professional Chef (9th ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.