breadcrumbs Archives - Time for a coffee

It was time to prepare dinner and I was thinking about what to cook and how to cook it. I had decided to cook some chicken wings, and my usual recipe is to either make a sauce or use a ready made cooking sauce and bake them in the oven. I decided I would do the chicken wings two ways. One would be coated in miso sauce and for the others I would do as crunchy wings.

I usually cut off the nib of the wing and then cut them into two pieces, to make them easier to eat.

The wings were then coated in seasoned flour. I used gluten free self-raising flour (as we were short on plain four), some chicken seasoning, paprika and chilli.

I then set up a bowl of beaten egg and one of gluten free seasoned breadcrumbs.

Keeping one had wet and the other dry, the floured chicken is coated in the egg and then coated in the breadcrumbs.

These are placed on a lined baking tray (I use baking parchment for these). The chicken wings are done one by one and are then baked in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the coating is browned and the chicken is cooked. Mine took a little longer than planned as I had more in the oven.

They were lovely and crunchy on the outside and the chicken was moist and tender on the inside. Lots of flavour in the coating as well.

Myself and others in the family quite enjoy scotch eggs, however now with a couple of people in the family on gluten free diets I was set the challenge of making some gluten free scotch eggs. The main issue with shop bought scotch eggs is the wheat in the breadcrumbs on the outside and potentially wheat in the sausage meat.

So remembering a cookery programme where they had cooked scotch eggs (I think it was Professional Masterchef) I went out and bought some ingredients.

As well as the medium sized free range eggs, I got some gluten free chipolata sausages. I did think if I should make my own gluten free breadcrumbs, but in the end I did find a packet of gluten free breadcrumbs from Morrisons.

I decided to use these as they would ensure the scotch eggs looked like the ones you could buy in the shops.

I hard boiled the eggs for ten minutes and then left them to cool. I did think about doing soft boiled eggs with a runny yolk, as they did on the telly, but in the end I wasn’t sure of the timings.

Having peeled the eggs I took the sausage meat from a single chipolata. I did this by gently slicing the skin of the sausage and removing it. I patted the sausage meat into a thin circle before wrapping it around the egg. One tip I had picked up from the cooking programme was to ensure that the sausagement was an even layer around the egg, which I think I managed to do.

The scotch egg was then rolled and covered in gluten free plain flour, then covered in beaten egg, before being covered in the gluten free breadcrumbs.

The resulting scotch egg was then deep fried in hot oil. It’s at times like this I wish I had a proper deep fat fryer, but in the end I cooked them in a smallish pan one at a time.

Once I thought the sausagemeat was cooked, the scotch egg was removed from the oil and drained on kitchen paper.

Well the end result was an authentic looking, tasting scotch egg with the texture one would expect. I was well pleased and they were very tasty.