No, this is not one of Agatha Christie’s little known cases but true-life kitchen drama. Do you think there is such a thing as Covid brain?  Because I feel I have become increasingly scatty over the last few…how long have we been in lockdown now?  Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t matter how long because we have just gone back into it for another SIX  weeks. 😕 For the love of God, people of Melbourne stay TF away from each other. Most of you aren’t even that attractive, why anyone in their right mind would want to get in your personal space is beyond me!

Ok. Rant over. Deep breaths and let’s talk about Vegetarian Scotch Eggs. And explosions.

Oh, these were so good!!  The idea from them came from me making Diana Henry’s Baby Pumpkins with mixed mushrooms, leeks, grains.  This was also totally delicious and I can heartily recommend making it!

But, after making this, I had a lot of the stuffing mix left.  This is no disrespect to Diana.  I’m sure had I wanted to stuff 8 eight baby pumpkins her quantities would have been just fine.  I was cooking for one.  There are usually only a certain amount of times you can divide a recipe before becoming nonsensical.  You can generally halve quantities. Sometimes quarter them to no ill effect.  Trying to cook to an eighth of a recipe makes no sense.  So I guesstimated what I would need for one pumpkin which left me with a lot of leftover filling. The filling was delicious so there was no way I was going to waste it but what to do with it?

My first thought was arancini. But why stop at arancini when you can also put an egg in it? And thus the ideal of my vegetarian scotch egg was born.  I popped an egg onto boil, intending to have the perfect four minute boiled egg in the centre of my scotchie.  Then went back to work.  So, about half an hour later I was drawn out of some intense concentration on a particularly fascinating spreadsheet by what sounded like a bomb going off in my kitchen.  First,  there was a massive bang, very closely followed by something hitting the window so hard I’m surprised the glass didn’t shatter.  The water had dried out in the pan so much that the egg had actually exploded!!!!  There was egg shrapnel all over my kitchen.  It was like eggmageddon in there!

Like this but on the stove:

Vegetarian Scotch Eggs Take Two

You know how when people who can’t cook say I can’t even boil an egg?  So, after the first egg EXPLODED, and I’d cleaned the kitchen and taken a few sedatives because the goddamn thing sounded like a bomb and my heart was pounding like a jackhammer it was time for egg number 2.

On the positive side…this one didn’t explode.

But I did kind of wander off mid-cook to take a call and lost track of egg time. I could tell while peeling it that it was hard-boiled and not the beautiful runny yolk I wanted.  But I wrapped it in the mushroom, leek and barley filling regardless.  This is the year of not wasting anything remember.

Sure we lost an egg in some explosive collateral damage but you know …I blame Covid for that.  I have no rationale for that blame.  It’s fucking everything else up so it can also take the blame for my exploding egg.  And you know if I hadn’t been working from home and been distracted from cooking it by…errmmmm…work…

Let’s swiftly move away from that one.

Egg 2  turned out pretty delish even though hard-boiled.

Vegetarian Scotch Eggs Take Three

I had a little of the mushroom filling leftover after wapping egg 2.  Third-time lucky right?  Right!  This time I did not take my eyes off that pan for the entire four minutes.  I barely blinked.  And voila the perfect 4-minute egg as per the pictures above and below

Because it was still so soft it was a little harder to wrap in the filling than the hard-boiled egg.  I was terrified I would press too hard and cause the yolk to ooze out before I could get it crumbed and fried.

It’s a bit hard to give you a recipe for this because it was based on the leftovers from the Diana Henry recipe which is here:

You need to judge how many eggs your leftover filling wil cover.  To crumb and cook the Scotch Eggs, see my recipe for Pakistani Scotch Eggs.  To get your eggs the way you want them, see below:

In lieu of a proper recipe this week, here is a little list of what is currently floating my boat.

Watching

Crazy Delicious – an amazing cooking show on Netflix.  Think Heston done by home cooks, a magical ingredient garden, a delightful host in Jayde Adams, oh and Heston is one of the judges!

Dead Pixels – another British show, this time a comedy about the lives of three people obsessed with a video game.

Searching For Sugarman  – this was our most recent film club choice.  It’s so touching and warm-hearted and  as an added bonus, the sounds track is awesome!  There has not been a DAY since I watched it when I have not listened to Rodriguez’s Cold Fact at least once!

Reading

I just finished reading “One of Us is Next” which is Karen McManus’ follow up to “One of Us is Lying”. I didn’t love it as much as the first book but it was still a good fun read.

Podding

My current fave is Season 4 of Slow Burn by Slate.  I loved Season 1 & 2 of this which covered Watergate and The Clintons respectively. I have not listened to S3 which is about Biggie and Tupac yet but I am going to start it in the next few days.  Season 4 is about David Duke who is a total dick a white supremacist politician from Louisiana, and formerly a grand wizard poobah double dragon something from the KuKluxKlan.  AKA a total f**king dick..

Here’s Topher Grace brilliantly playing him in Black Klansman.

Please send me your recommendations for books, tv, pods, films, music something, anything to keep me entertained over the next few weeks!

Life Update

Just to make us all feel a little bit better about the state of the world, here is a picture of Holly being adorable.  This little dog has absolutely captured our hearts in the last 6 months. She has gone from a timid little thing who was scared of everything to a cheeky little girl who is confident and happy in her life.   Being able to give such a lovely girl, who has had such a terrible life, a loving home for the last chapters of her life is the best thing we have done for a long time!

If anyone is thinking about adopting an older dog or a dog rescued from medical research please reach out.  I am happy to share our experiences.

Have a great week everyone!  Have fun, stay safe, and please, send me your recommendations for books, films, podcasts, tv, etc!