I'm Kendra, and I'm in the BA Test Kitchen
to have a super secret conversation about Chris Morocco.
Once again,
we are putting Chris's super taster abilities to the test.
This is Gordon Ramsey's Scotch Egg.
I'm challenging Chris to recreate this dish
with all of its ingredients, in just one day.
He will be able to smell the dish, taste it and touch it,
but at no point will he be able to see this dish.
At the end of the day,
we'll come back to see his final creation,
and I'll be the judge.
[tense music]
[Chris sniffing]
[soft jazzy music]
Oh, huh. I don't know what that was.
For a second, the only words that came to mind
were sort of egg-y, saucy.
Whoa. It's like a large, pretty solid, little object here.
Is this a dish composed of only these things?
Oh wait, no, but we've got something.
Ah! Thanks for the heads up.
[soft jazzy music]
So mustardy, so dense.
But is it like just straight up mustard?
Is it mustard that's been turned into some kind of a sauce?
There's a real punch and and like, kind of a heat to it.
It's giving me like a lot of horseradish,
but I don't know if that's just because
mustard has always tasted like horseradish
and I just never really thought about it deeply enough.
Smelling meat. Like, pork.
Supremely crisp outside here.
So what I'm getting is sausage,
and it's feeling particularly more towards the end
of like the breakfast sausage end of the spectrum.
And then it's been breaded and fried.
It feels so tightly adhered to the sausage.
It's leading me to believe
that it's more of like a three part dredge,
like somebody put some flour on there, and then an egg wash
and then very fine breadcrumbs.
And then we have our friend, the egg.
Feels like that yolk is still fairly molten in there.
This feels like right down the middle,
Scotch egg, mustard dipping sauce, done.
So if there are some other
little tweaks and elements kind of happening,
they're acting in very subtle ways.
[soft jazzy music]
Never made a Scotch egg. Eaten one maybe once or twice.
It's more like something you know,
as opposed to something you might eat all the time.
Okay, so, Scotch eggs. We need eggs.
Breakfast sausage. I think we gotta taste of mustards.
Dijon mustard, yellow mustard, spicy brown mustard.
Horseradish, vinegar.
I don't think this is the right call,
but it's like, almost as though there's like, miso in there.
Somebody's gonna grab these ingredients
and then I'll be able to get going in my first attempt.
[tense music]
So here we are with our ingredients.
So we're just tasting different mustards. This is Dijon.
It's definitely a lot like, brighter and more acidic,
and a little bit like tinny and metallic than the original.
Then this is yellow mustard.
It's like, very sharp, very acidic.
Not really like the original dish at all.
I am going with the Dijon, but with some amendments.
I don't think it's just straight up mustard.
I need to sweeten it up,
so I added a little sweetness in the form of maple.
I think the horseradish is maybe wrong.
I'm adding some vinegar-based hot sauce.
A little bit of that should punch up the flavor
and bring like, a little bit of that warming,
kind of heat quality that I had in the original.
Couple pinches of salt.
It ain't bad. Game plan is gotta cook the eggs.
Timing of the eggs is key here.
Okay, we want six and a half minute eggs.
Anywhere within six and seven minutes
you've got a molten yolk that's just cooked edge to edge
but it hasn't solidified.
And we need the egg to hold together enough
that we can really manipulate it within that sausage casing.
That is essential.
So I'm putting them right into ice water for two minutes
just so that they can cool down,
'cause I really wanna arrest the cooking process
so that the yolk stays molten.
These are peeling pretty nice. This is breakfast sausage.
So, sausage is outta the casing.
Get the sausage on there. Just like a a nice clean layer.
So I got a little excess,
but I can just kind of pinch it off
and just kind of work it around to even it out.
All right, right? I mean come on.
We've got eggs packaged together with the sausage casing.
Now it's time for our dredge.
So I've got just plain breadcrumb,
you know, which has no seasoning.
The Italian breadcrumbs,
in here we've got garlic powder, onion powder, parsley,
paprika, black pepper.
Let's just be bold.
We're gonna use the Italian style seasoned.
From a flavor perspective,
it just feels so much closer to the original.
[soft jazzy music]
A few big pinches of salt.
[shaker grinding]
Dredge station is here. Got our three elements.
We've got our flour, got our beaten egg,
and I've got my seasoned breadcrumbs.
Alright, so we did flour first and then we did egg.
I want this to be fully coated,
but I also, you know, I wanna drain off all that excess,
and then into our breadcrumbs.
[bowl clattering]
Okay, six. Whoo!
Alright, I've got my six Scotch eggs ready to be fried.
And I'm gonna do a tester, just one of them into the oil
and see how this does.
There's like a shallow fry and there's deep fry.
This to me, feels like something
that you're simply deep frying.
I want it to be golden.
I want it to be crispy around the outside.
To me, this is like pretty classic deep fried food,
but could be wrong.
Like, that seems pretty good to me.
I'm gonna keep it going for one more minute.
Just get it a little bit darker,
but then, I feel pretty good about that.
While the other five Scotch eggs are still frying,
I wanna cut into this one tester to see how we did
and how the cook looks on it.
Already loving the color.
Loving, you know, just the crispy outer shell.
Sausage is cooked.
[jazzy percussive music]
I feel like the egg is maybe,
perhaps slightly more cooked than I might want it.
And I do wonder if the egg is in fact,
cooking a little bit on that secondary cook
more than I might've thought.
Let's plate it up. Mustard condimento.
[jazzy percussive music]
Scotch eggs with maple Dijon dipping sauce.
Here's my first attempt at the dish.
I only feel okay about this.
Alright, I'm gonna give myself some scores.
And first up is ingredients. 75.
I just feel like
there could be a lot of hidden elements in here.
I mean like the sauce, I was really just like guessing
and throwing it together at the end there.
Technique, I feel better about. I wanna say like 85.
Appearance, 85.
I mean, there could be like some color differentials.
Maybe there was a garnish that I missed,
but I don't think so.
Taste. Egg's gone a little far over.
I mean, maybe we need to do like a five minute cook.
Five and a half minute on these.
Taste, I'm thinking is somewhere around
like in the 75 range.
Honestly, I don't know what I'm missing, but it's something.
On this piece of paper I've got my actual scores. Let's see.
No! No, no, no.
Actual on ingredients is 49. 49.
Technique, 65, appearance, 72, taste, 70.
Overall score is a 64.
Okay. I see how it's gonna be.
Next stage, I'm gonna taste the original dish again.
As ever, there is a lot to be gleaned from that tasting,
and I don't know what it is.
So I need to go into it with a super open mind
and forget what I think I know about this dish or anything
and just figure out what's there.
[tense music]
Hm.
Let's go sauce first.
I need to explore some other sort of things
in the space of like, hot mustard products.
And could even be like, you know,
it's like Coleman's English mustard powder
plus, you know, some kind of like liquid element.
And I think what I mistook for like a horseradish-y,
or kind of chili hot sauce-based heat,
is really just like the quality of the mustard itself.
[soft jazzy music]
Still getting that little bit of sweetness from the meat.
Maybe I was wrong with the sort of breakfast sausage.
But could it be like a banger. You know, a chipolata.
Some kind of like, a North Cumberland sausage.
There is this quality to the breading.
Ah, it's kind of driving me crazy.
There's like, a sweetness there.
I don't know what that sweetness is coming from.
I'm having a hard time thinking of anything
beyond maple and sugar for sweetness.
I'm not getting like fruit. Feeling great, but not good.
We'll just call it. It's like a sit down kind of day.
[group chuckling]
Just get cozy. Nobody's goin' anywhere.
Let's just do some different things
for the sake of doing some different things.
Hot English mustard. Fine breadcrumbs.
We're just gonna do our own.
Paprika. Dried parsley.
All right, slowly revised list. Let's see what comes back.
At least take another shot at it. Change some things, right?
In theory, there's nowhere to go but up,
but is that actually true?
I guess we'll find out.
[tense music]
Round two, new attitude.
General game plan
is to do the exact same thing that I did before,
but with different ingredients.
We've got Cumberland sausages.
I was taking some stabs in the dark
in terms of English iconic sausages.
The mustard, I'm fascinated by.
This is Coleman's English mustard.
This has a lot of sweetness to it.
It's the right consistency, softness of acidity.
I'm so happy with that. What a find.
If this is the right mustard and this is the right sausage,
then, you know, it makes me less inclined
to use an Italian seasoned breadcrumb.
Which I feel like isn't something
that you probably would find the same way like, in England.
I'm gonna cook the eggs six minutes,
'cause that was a relatively firm yolk in that last one.
The eggs are cooking. Let's do our dredge.
Unseasoned breadcrumbs, onion powder, garlic powder.
Sweet paprika, 'cause, why not?
Dried parsley.
How about a cheeky little addition of mustard powder
in the friggin' dredge?
How do you like them apples?
Just a teaspoon just to be cute, 'cause, why not?
[shaker grinding]
Salt and pepper.
[soft jazzy music]
Salty. A little sweet.
It's great. So I am de-linking this sausage.
I feel really good about this sausage. Nice texture.
Do we think that's dried parsley? Pork and parsley.
Just the Cumbrian way.
We went a little bit shorter on the cook time for the egg.
Six minutes. Still holding together majestically.
Oh yeah, this sausage is nice to work with.
Just want it to kind of come together
and like, bind to itself more readily.
This definitely doesn't feel 28 points worth of different,
but it doesn't feel bad.
Alright, we are breaded, ready to go.
Let's get into the oil. Temp is slightly high at 360.
I'm gonna jack up the heat just while I drop these in
'cause it's gonna cool that oil down so quickly.
Let's go check it at four minutes.
These are a little bit more delicate,
so I wanna be careful even agitating them in the pot.
I'm gonna give it a good minute
before I start poking at them.
Looking good. They held together nicely.
Color's good.
Out of the fryer and onto the counter, as they say.
I'm using that mustard straight up.
[plate clattering]
[knife grating]
Oh! That is a nice little cook there.
This is my second attempt at the dish.
Let's talk scores.
Ingredients, if my actual was a 49,
let's say like, I eked out a 70.
Technique, let's say like, again, maybe we're at a 70 here.
Appearance, 75.
I dunno, you guys freaked me out with the appearance.
I thought that was the one thing I had locked,
and then you really cut me down.
Taste, we'll see you about with the judge.
Hi. Hello.
Are you excited?
I'm mostly scared.
Okay, I'm really excited to present to you today,
Gordon Ramsey's Scotch Egg.
Mm.
[Kendra] Right off the bat, what can you tell me?
[Chris] There's something in the sausage.
Um-huh.
There's in fact, two things in the sausage
that aren't in yours.
[Chris] What is that though?
[Kendra] It's black pudding.
Uh.
Okay, and while you're massaging your head,
I will just slide in there
that the second thing is grated apple. Are you well?
We talked a lot about sweetness.
[screen swooshing]
There's like a sweetness there.
I don't know what that sweetness is coming from.
I'm not getting like, fruit.
[voice deepening and slowing] I'm not getting like, fruit.
Because you didn't put
these extra fun, flavory things in the sausage,
you sought that flavor elsewhere
by adding it to your breadcrumb.
[Chris] Breading. But this is just panko.
[Chris] Breadcrumbs! It's panko?
[Kendra] Look at that.
For a six minute egg,
and fried in a deep fry for slightly less time.
This is a five minute egg,
fried in a shallow fry for slightly more time.
Five minutes? Five minute is dangerous.
I know, but it goes for 12 in the shallow fry.
Okay, fair.
So you need to sort of start from a place
of being less cooked.
But I would be very afraid to peel a five minute egg.
We're gonna talk scoring. Okay.
And we're gonna start with ingredients.
Great. As you know,
you added a bunch to the outside that wasn't there
and you missed two things inside.
[Chris] Yeah, yeah.
[Kendra] And for this reason, you get 75.
That's fine. That's totally fine.
[Kendra] You just, it's so many spices in here.
I know. That's the hard part.
I know. I know.
[Kendra] Yeah, technique. There was timing differences.
But obviously, ultimately it's came out to a similar place.
Shallow fry versus deep fry
is the only real sticky difference.
Yep. You gave yourself a 70.
I'm giving you an 82.
Wow. Okay.
Appearance.
They're really close, other than the breadcrumb,
in large part, because I think your added spices
created this like, darkness bit
that the black pudding actually did here.
So you did sort of inadvertently
end up at a visual likeness.
I'm giving you a 90.
I feel that you deserve to know that you were, you're close.
For taste, we have to taste.
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. That's pretty nice, Chris.
That's nice.
We got, I mean, we got to a good place with it.
Nothing sticks out. It's just savory.
Um-huh, yeah.
And I feel like it's a similar vibe in my mind with his,
but let's see. Yeah, okay.
Much more set, honestly.
[Chris] It's that cook time.
[Kendra] It's the 12 minutes.
[Chris] It's the 12.
[Kendra] 12 minutes is so long.
[Chris] Look at like, the white, you know?
Yeah. Uh, I [indistinct].
Huh, you taste just the sausage bit,
and you're like, there's a sweetness there.
Look, I can see.
Oh, I know that little shred.
Like, that's like a grated apple bit.
Yep, for sure.
I think the black pudding kind of has its own sweetness
and it has its own spice quality to it,
and it's almost like you're using black pudding
to season the sausage.
Exactly. Yeah.
Which is very antithetical as a developer
to using sausage in the first place.
[Kendra] Totally.
I'd give myself like, an 80 here.
That's exactly what I think you get.
We're giving you an 82.
B minus. I'll take it.
I think you did great.
Thanks. These are delightful.
It's actually really fun.
It's such like, a showstopper of a thing.
Yes, totally.
I do think you should feel proud of yourself for today.
I know that it was challenging. I know that you had doubts.
I know that you almost added miso to mustard.
Yes.
[screen swooshing] It's like almost as though
there's like, miso in there.
Indeed. That's a wild ride.
But you came out on top. I really think so.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you for doing this. I appreciate it.
[chuckling] Of course. Anytime.
This is the 40th episode of Reverse Engineering,
and how fitting that it was a Gordon Ramsey recipe, right?
Because the first recipe we ever did on Reverse Engineering
was Gordon's Beef Wellington.
Another one down, but fair play to you, Gordon.
Didn't see the apple or the black pudding coming. Dang.
You know, I feel like he's gotten the last word.
Got nothing to tell you about Scotch eggs,
other than make 'em, eat 'em, enjoy them.
Don't, don't like, you know, don't let them get you down.
It should be fun. [snickering]
