Creole-Scotch Eggs

Serves people

Instructions

  1. Put the eggs in a saucepan of enough cold water to cover it by about an inch. Turn on the heat and bring the water to a boil. As soon as it boils, remove the pan from the heat, cover it, and let it stand for 17 minutes. (Use a timer.)
  2. While waiting on that, make the hollandaise. Whisk the egg yolks and the vinegar briskly in a metal bowl set over a saucepan with about an inch of simmering water at the bottom. If you see even a hint of curdling in the eggs, take the bowl off the heat, but keep whisking. Keep going back and forth from the heat until the mixture turns thick and lightens in color. Whisk in a tablespoon of warm water.
  3. Begin adding the softened butter, a pat at a time. After about a fourth of the butter is in there, you'll begin to see a change in the texture of the sauce. At that point, you can step up the addition of the butter a bit, and keep going till all the butter is incorporated.
  4. Whisk in the cayenne and the lemon juice. Add a cup of cold water to the hot water in the saucepan. Put the bowl with the sauce on top of it. Cover the bowl with a plate. That should keep it nice and warm. Check it every now and then and give it a whisk.
  5. When the timer goes off for the hard-boiled eggs, pour off the water from that pan and fill it with cold water until the eggs are cool to the touch.
  6. Put an egg between the palms of your hands and, with a bit of pressure, roll the eggs until the shell is cracked all over. This should break the membrane between the shell and the egg white, and make it easy to peel. Peel all the eggs this way.
  7. Divide the sausage into six wide patties about a quarter of an inch thick. Press down on each to make it solid (the opposite of what you'd do for a meatball or hamburger). Season with the salt.
  8. Wet your hands. Wrap each egg with a sausage patty, squeezing the seams together with thumb and forefinger to seal it all around.
  9. The rest of this is like pannee. Put the flour in a dish and roll the coated eggs in it to make a thin skin of flour. Dip each coated egg into the beaten egg to coat lightly. Mix the marjoram and salt into the bread crumbs, and roll the eggs around in the crumbs to coat well.

Ingredient List