nr706 wrote:

Rene G wrote:The other day I noticed an egg-on-a-stick and of course corn dog after corn dog after corn dog. It's only a matter of time before some genius combines the two.

Calling Gus ...

i'll take a pass on this one

Josephine wrote:Many years ago, in grad school round 1, I came across something very like a Scotch egg in an article about Afghan food. The boiled egg was wrapped in a a layer of fatty chopped lamb and garlic, and then pan fried and served with a tomato sauce. I still have that recipe somewhere, I'm sure. But I wonder if this might be an example of a dish that made its way from East to West via some early British East India company cook. I love convoluted theories. In defense of them: the Dutch passion for the flower from the Mongolian steppes.

Actually, a scotch-egg is very much like a Indian/Pakistani Muslim dish.. but, of
course, there is no sausage involved.

The dish is called a Nargisi Kabab, and I like it a fair bit. Its basically a hard-boiled
egg (either full, or cut into halves), wrapped in ground-meat (usually beef,
or maybe ground lamb sometimes I guess), and then deep-fried. Really,
other than substituting ground-beef for ground-sausage, the scotch egg
is pretty much the same thing! (Well, apart from the fact that some spices
are probably mixed into the ground beef in the subcontinent).

This is a dish usually made at home - not sure many restaurants in Chicago
carry it. I think I may once have seen it at Daata Durbar for a breakfast
morning type special... but it was in a gravy there IIRC (at home its a
"dry kabab" item, not served with gravy usually).

Not sure if the dish worked its way from the west to the east, or vice versa.
But there sure are similarities

c8w

c8w wrote:Actually, a scotch-egg is very much like a Indian/Pakistani Muslim dish.. but, of course, there is no sausage involved.

Out of curiosity, I tried some google research on this (despite my distaste for hard boiled eggs!)

I didn't find anything conclusive about origins, but I did find a recipe for "Scotch Eggs Chinese Style" and a scotch ostrich egg! (with photos!)

Wikipedia mentions the preparation c8w describes in the entry on kofta but without making any claims about provenance.

germuska wrote:

c8w wrote:Actually, a scotch-egg is very much like a Indian/Pakistani Muslim dish.. but, of course, there is no sausage involved.

Out of curiosity, I tried some google research on this (despite my distaste for hard boiled eggs!)

I didn't find anything conclusive about origins, but I did find a recipe for...and a scotch ostrich egg! (with photos!)

Thanks for finding those pictures. I don't think I like hard boiled eggs anymore...

There was a Thanksgiving episode of Iron Chef America where the ingredient was (surprise) turkey. The contenders, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, aka the Too Hot Tamales, made a Scotch egg with a turkey egg and turkey sausage. It was still pretty massive, though more appealing looking than that ostrich one.

And I think the women won that episode, too. That's always nice to see.

I'm no Scotch Egg expert, I only ordered it once before, in some fake Irish place, and wasn't happy about paying 6-7 dollars for one egg. I have much fonder memories of a light-purple colored pickled egg, pulled out of a jar by a bartender who was missing a finger or two, at 8am, in a bar in NJ.

But the other night I was in the Paramount Room and a group of visiting chefs were sitting down to sample about half the things on the menu, when one of the chefs made a plea to try the Scotch Egg. Little did I know (and take my Food Blogging ID card away for this) but this faux-hawked, strangly dressed chef was probably Dale Levitsky, one of the Top Chef runner ups. I can't be sure, since I haven't seen the show (again, take away my Foodie card) but he was a dead ringer for the photos of him online.

Anyway, back to the egg...
Having taken another visiting chef's reccommendation the last time I was in there, I promptly ordered the egg...





The sausage was really flavorful, just over pink, the egg cooked just right. Fortunately these things are 9 bucks each, so there's no chance of me overloading on them and severly increasing the chance of needing an in-home defiblirator.


Paramount Room
415 North Milwaukee Avenue
(just south of Hubbard and the viaduct)

I had my first and second experience with the Scotch Egg at two different places in one day and couldn't be happier for finding this gem.

My first journey was to the Pepper Canister which I had found online when I googled Scotch Egg. I got off work a little early so I headed over alone to try some eggs with a cold Newcastle. Overall I was happy to have tried something new but I knew I hadn't tried the best of what England's got to offer. The sausage wrapping was way too thin...and to be honest I'm not sure it was sausage at all. It seemed like the egg was simply battered and fried which I'd still order if they wrote it on the menu as that but no dice. The dish was only $6 but didn't fill my craving for a Scotch Egg.




As I left the pub I told myself "dont give up that easy". I started walking, and walking, and kept walking bar to bar, pub to pub. I checked each menu rather than simply googling it on my iPhone and got about 6 miles into my journey when I chose to call a friend and get a little help. She googled it and came up with the Gage...to the bar!

We got to the Gage and I was in love. The place had a nice classy feel to it but at the same time not too uptight and pretentious like some bars can be sometimes. We promptly ordered the Scotch Egg, some beers and Duck Rilletes for the little lady. The Scotch Egg was not only good...but great. The egg was a good size, the sausage was plenty, and the flavor was definitely there. Along with a great egg came a large quenelle of mustard. I felt like I tasted something close to the classic. At $8 for one egg one may complain but not this guy. I enjoyed every last bite of it and couldn't have asked for more during my stay. Overall an A+





The Pepper Canister
509 N Wells St
(between Grand Ave & Illinois St)
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 467-3300

The Gage
24 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60603
312-372-4243

kiplog wrote:I'm no Scotch Egg expert, I only ordered it once before, in some fake Irish place, and wasn't happy about paying 6-7 dollars for one egg. I have much fonder memories of a light-purple colored pickled egg, pulled out of a jar by a bartender who was missing a finger or two, at 8am, in a bar in NJ.

But the other night I was in the Paramount Room and a group of visiting chefs were sitting down to sample about half the things on the menu, when one of the chefs made a plea to try the Scotch Egg. Little did I know (and take my Food Blogging ID card away for this) but this faux-hawked, strangly dressed chef was probably Dale Levitsky, one of the Top Chef runner ups. I can't be sure, since I haven't seen the show (again, take away my Foodie card) but he was a dead ringer for the photos of him online.

Anyway, back to the egg...
Having taken another visiting chef's reccommendation the last time I was in there, I promptly ordered the egg...





The sausage was really flavorful, just over pink, the egg cooked just right. Fortunately these things are 9 bucks each, so there's no chance of me overloading on them and severly increasing the chance of needing an in-home defiblirator.


Paramount Room
415 North Milwaukee Avenue
(just south of Hubbard and the viaduct)

Note that unless a recent rendition of the Paramount Room's scotch egg was a complete aberration, the picture above is no longer even close to how they serve the dish. The recent rendition had several smaller pieces, not the one large one pictured above. Each piece had a small chunk of egg: some just the white, some just the yolk, some a little of both. Maybe this change was made to make the dish more conducive to sharing, but I have to say it was pretty disappointing.

We promptly ordered the Scotch Egg, some beers and Duck Rilletes for the little lady. The Scotch Egg was not only good...but great. The egg was a good size, the sausage was plenty, and the flavor was definitely there. Along with a great egg came a large quenelle of mustard. I felt like I tasted something close to the classic. At $8 for one egg one may complain but not this guy. I enjoyed every last bite of it and couldn't have asked for more during my stay.

Were you there on Sunday? We stopped in (our first time as well) after a visit to the Harris theater and I agree that the $8 price tag is worth every penny for the Scotch Egg at the Gage.

The egg was cooked perfectly, and the surrounding sausage & breading was not overpowering at all. If anything, the sausage mixture was a little too sage-y, but that's a small quibble. A really, really good balance of flavor and texture, and all in all the best scotch egg I've had yet.

We also had a tuna tartare that was on special that was only okay. Win some, lose some.

whiskeybent wrote:Were you there on Sunday? We stopped in (our first time as well) after a visit to the Harris theater and I agree that the $8 price tag is worth every penny for the Scotch Egg at the Gage.

Were we all there on Sunday? I was at the bar, watching basketball. I didn't have the Scotch egg this go-round, but had some damn fine corned beef hash with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. The corned beef was house-made.

I really have come around to The Gage.

Stretching "Chicago" to mean "Chicago-land", I consider Three Floyds' Scotch egg to be the best. A steal at $3, theirs is served with a spicy sausage and tabasco-aioli. Hopleaf's version is also great, going with a different take entirely -- they manage to keep the egg soft-boiled, allowing for a wondefully luscious texture (though their sausage is a more mild, garlic-y one). Sadly, it only seems to show up on their menu in the winter months, which I think is a crock -- there's never a bad time for Scotch eggs!

I also have to agree with the assesment of Paramount Room's version -- it's like they fry it up, then quarter it and toss it under the salamander. The eggs come out wayyyy over-cooked and it's best left avoided.

Kennyz wrote:Note that unless a recent rendition of the Paramount Room's scotch egg was a complete aberration, the picture above is no longer even close to how they serve the dish. The recent rendition had several smaller pieces, not the one large one pictured above. Each piece had a small chunk of egg: some just the white, some just the yolk, some a little of both. Maybe this change was made to make the dish more conducive to sharing, but I have to say it was pretty disappointing.

I confirmed this on Saturday. The scotch egg at Paramount Room is now served in 5 big, independently-coated and -fried chunks. It was a bit of a let-down, because I forgot about Kennyz's post and went in expecting a single, big, glorious egg. It looked to me like maybe half an egg was used to make the five chunks on our plate...each 1.5-inch-diameter nugget was mostly sausage, with a half teaspoon of boiled egg in it (mostly whites).

My personal theory behind this change is that people were getting the single egg on a plate and saying, "$7 for THIS?" Whereas now, the plate looks a bit more full and people may perceive it to be a better value. That and the shareability.

Still, it was a bit of a disappointment. It's a fine plate of fried sausage chunks, but a scotch egg it ain't.

I had the best scotch egg I've ever had at the Water Street Brewery stand at the Wisconsin State Fair last week. Large egg, lots of juicy flavorful sausage, perfectly cooked. Only 5 dollars. I see from their website that they serve it at the actual brewery and their other two restaurants for the same price. Next time I'm in the Milwaukee area I'll have to check out the brewery.

This thread is pretty old; Is there any new information about good scotch eggs in Chicagoland?

The Water Street Brewery
1101 N. Water Street
Milwaukee, WI.
(414) 272-1195

I can vouch for the Scotch Egg at Pleasant House Bakery. Really fantastic sausage and a slightly runny yolk - perfect snack food to take to Maria's next door.

Ursiform wrote:I can vouch for the Scotch Egg at Pleasant House Bakery. Really fantastic sausage and a slightly runny yolk - perfect snack food to take to Maria's next door.

It is great, as is the one served at Owen & Engine. Last week, I had a great one at recently-opened Dragon Ranch. In all 3 cases, the sausage was well-seasoned and properly bound, and the yolk was runny.

=R=