Tag Archives: keeping chickens

Scotch Eggs

18 May
Not all eggs are equal. Mabel can lay an occasional Frankenegg, while Betty's are always small and white

Not all eggs are equal. Mabel can lay an occasional Frankenegg, while Betty’s are always small and white

I keep hens. So I have a plentiful supply of fresh eggs.

I am Scottish and live in Scotland.

So the only surprise is that it’s taken this long to write about Scotch Eggs.

Chooks having an afternoon nap

Chooks having an afternoon nap

Firstly a word or two about fresh eggs. The very freshest of fresh eggs are not the eggs you want to hard boil. When eggs are straight out of the hen, the membrane between the egg white and the shell is tight up next to the shell, making them difficult to peel. As the days go by, air will permeate through the egg shell, creating a teeny tiny space between shell and membrane and the bubble space you will sometimes find when you have hard boiled an egg.

Do yourself a favour, poach or fry those extra fresh eggs, they’ll be much nicer.

But back to the Scotch Eggs. I haven’t identified precise quantities here. Eggs are different sizes and some will need more sausage to cover them than others. Oh, and you might want a really thick coating of sausage. Or not.

  • eggs
  • some flour
  • some getting on for stale bread (or use up those posh japanese panko breadcrumbs you were persuaded to buy and still have hanging around in your cupboard)
  • sausage meat (about 1 1/2 sausages per egg)
  • black pudding (about a quarter of a slice per egg)
  • herbs, spices, salt and pepper
  1. Hard boil your eggs – ideally so they have a slightly squishy bit in the middle of the yolk. You may have your own fool proof method, but if not, try my method at the bottom of this blog.
  2. While the eggs are boiling, make your crunchy breadcrumbs. Cut some bread into wee cubes, about 1cm across. Place the cubes onto a baking tray and put them in a low oven to dry out and crisp up a bit. Once they are dried, smash them up – I do this by putting them in a high sided bowl and bashing them with the end of a rolling pin. You might prefer to put them in a plastic bag and pretend they are a disliked work colleague.
  3. Break an extra egg into a soup bowl and lightly beat it with a fork. Leave the beaten egg in this bowl
  4. Pour some flour into another soup bowl
  5. Place the breadcrumbs into a soup bowl too. you don’t have to use soup bowls of course, but I find a wide based bowl is easier than anything else.
  6. If you are using sausages, unpeel them into a bowl and add whatever herbs and spices you want to use (I added some smoked paprika and ground black pepper). Then chop up the black pudding nice and fine and using your hands, smoosh the black pudding and the sausage meat together
  7. Take big chunks of the sausagey mixture and pat it out till it forms a sausage meat blanket, about 1/2cm thick
  8. Now peel your eggs, then one by one make your scotch eggs
  9. Dip the egg in the beaten egg
  10. Roll the egg in flour
  11. Place the egg on a sausage blanket and wrap it up in, squooshing it together so there are no gaps
  12. Dip the sausage eggy ball in more beaten egg
  13. Roll the egg in breadcrumbs
  14. Place the breadcrumb coated sausagey eggy ball on a baking tray
  15. Repeat till you’ve run out eggs or sausage or the will to live
  16. Bake in a medium – hot oven (about GM5 or 6) for about 20 – 30 mins, or until they look and sound cooked
  17. Serve warm, or cold, with salad. Yes, salad. Don’t be a salad dodger!
You need hard boiled eggs

You need hard boiled eggs

Make your own scrunchy breadcrumbs

Make your own scrunchy breadcrumbs

Beaten up eggy for dipping to make the flour and breadcrumbs stick

Beaten up eggy for dipping to make the flour and breadcrumbs stick

Make blankets of sausage meat mixture to wrap your eggs

Make blankets of sausage meat mixture to wrap your eggs

Scotch eggs, ready for the oven

I'm so proud of my ladies, laying me such tasty treats!

I’m so proud of my ladies, laying me such tasty treats!

How to boil an egg

  1. Keep your eggs at room temperature (I don’t think they need to be kept in a fridge, unless you have an outrageously warm kitchen)
  2. Put enough water in a pan so that the eggs you want to boil will be covered with water (and about 1cm more). The water should be about room temperature too.
  3. Place the eggs into the pan of water
  4. Put the water and eggs onto a hotplate, and bring to the boil
  5. Once the water is boiling, turn the heat down slightly so that it continues to boil, but doesn’t splutter everywhere
  6. Set the timer to 4 minutes
  7. Use your 4 minutes wisely – put ice and water into a bowl, big enough that your eggs will fit in it
  8. When the timer goes off, lift each egg out and pop it into the cold icy water
Eggs in icy water

Eggs in icy water

Related articles

 

Tags: , , , , ,

My girls

9 Mar

So, we now have five hens: Achilles, Hector and Wee Tommy are hybrids (Lohmann Browns) who have been with us since the Autumn. They give us an egg each pretty much every day. We also now have Betty and Mabel, a white and a blue Wyandotte. They came to live with our girls a few weeks ago and have stubbornly refused to lay. Until now. This week we had FOUR eggs one day. I suspect it’s Big Mabel who is laying, not wee Betty. I can’t imagine that Betty can produce a full sized egg, and all four eggs were bigger than your average, with lovely deep yellow yolks.

Anyway, as you can imagine, we’re eating a lot of eggy dishes these days, and this afternoon will see the production of a souffle for the first time, probably a cheese souffle.

But for now, it’s time for pics of my girls, so here you go, a selection from the last few weeks.

2013-03-02 15.11.15

 

Moby has her eye on the girls

Moby has her eye on the girls

2013-03-02 15.10.38

Mabel isn’t sure about Moby

The girls huddling by the door

The girls huddling by the door

2013-03-02 13.00.37

2013-03-02 13.00.14

 

 

 

 

Related articles

 

Tags:

Introducing ….Mabel and Betty

17 Feb

Last weekend we went to pick up two new chickens. Hens. Chooks. Girls. Whatever you want to call them.

And for the last week they have just been known as the new girls or the blue one and the white one. Or the new two.

But this morning they got names, over breakfast, as I was eating really delicious scrambled eggs on toast, watching them outside doing their chooky thing.

Mabel making herself at home in a nesting box

Mabel making herself at home in a nesting box

 

Moby tries to play Wacky Races with Betty

Moby tries to play Wacky Races with Betty

Mabel is being bullied by the three original girls. Whenever she gets close to them, especially when there’s food about, one of them will peck at her to chase her away. She runs pretty fast though so she’s not being harmed. And Betty, who is very petite and possibly a bantam, just hides behind Mabel so she’s ok.

Mabel and Betty haven’t started laying again yet after their winter break, but as the days get longer and spring starts to show, I’m sure they’ll be laying soon. At the moment we’re very happy with three eggs a day from Achilles, Hector and Tommy – and the eggs have got much bigger than when they first started laying, with rich dark yellow yolks – perfect for poached eggs, which is a regular quick supper these days.

Both Mabel and Betty are Wyandottes – a white and a blue – but they are so different from one another to look at. Personality wise, they are both much shyer and less talkative than the hybrids, with Mabel being protective of wee Betty. They are canny wee girls though – they’ve nabbed the nesting box for themselves, and they’ve worked out when to nip in and grab a treat without being pecked by the bullies.

 

 

Tags:

I hate bullies

10 Feb

Hector and Achilles are bullies. I should have known. Give the girls names which make them think they will be immortalised for their battles and of course they were going to pick on the new beautiful girl.

I may have to call my bumptious big white girl Helen if those Greek/Trojan heroes are going to fight over her.

This afternoon I went to give them all a wee treat of some bread (cut up into dinky wee cubes so they all get some) and Achilles, Hector and Tommy were outside doing their chookie thing, while the two new girls were  indoors and keeping out of the way. That’s ok, the new girls might be feeling a little lost and want to get their bearings before they venture out too much.

But of course when there was no food left outside, the old girls started to wander in to see what I might be offering indoors. And then they went for the white chicken to try to prevent her from getting any treats. It was Hector, he was the ring leader. Achilles kinda joined in, and Tommy was too busy scrabbling around for food to really get involved.

I’ve read about bullying when new chickens join an established group, about how it takes them some time to establish the new pecking order. But it’s brutal! I told Hector off, but I suspect she doesn’t understand like a dog would, and so she’ll continue to pick on ‘Helen’ pecking feathers out of her neck.

Meanwhile the wee blue girl was hiding in the shadows, keeping out of the way and then darting out to peck at some bread when the others were too busy fighting to notice. I think I like her already.

 

Tags: ,

I need to talk about chickens

2 Dec

So, a few things have changed in my life recently.

I left my flat in the city and moved in with my boyfriend, The Captain. We live in the country, a mile or two away from the nearest town and surrounded by fields. The bottom of the garden leads to a lovely wooded hillside, and if you walk down through the trees you reach the River Clyde. It’s a beautiful part of the world.

That was number one change.

Then I got a new job. I had the interview and was offered the job a few days before I moved house, so it was a pretty hectic few days. And for the first time in my life I decided to do the grown up thing and take a week off between jobs. I’m so glad I did it.

I’d sort of thought I might get some unpacking done that week, but it appears that if it’s not essential, it stays in an unmarked box in the cupboard under the stairs, behind many other unmarked boxes. We’re now nearly three months on and I’ve still got a big pile of boxes to deal with – but of course nowhere to put all the things inside the boxes, so perhaps it’s easier if they all just stay where they are. I’d really like to find my circular knitting needles though, and be able to reach my vases again, but these things can probably wait.

So, the week off. Instead of unpacking boxes we built a chicken run. And then got chickens. Three gorgeous wee broon hens. They are Lohmann Browns, a hybrid breed, bred especially to give high egg-laying yield (around 300 eggs a year is possible from one chicken). What I didn’t know when I got the wee girls is that they are the easiest creatures to keep, and that these three ladies would have such friendly personalities.

What I’ve discovered about keeping chickens in the last 6 weeks:

  1. They each have their own unique personalities
  2. I feel a bit squirk when I get an egg straight out of the chicken, still warm and then cook it and eat it
  3. I’m no longer sure that I could eat my chickens once they’ve stopped laying
  4. Chicken will come running to you when they are called
  5. Chickens LOVE sweetcorn
  6. Dogs and cats and chickens can live in harmony after a few days of anxiety
  7. Moby our jack russel wants to be a chicken
  8. The chickens don’t want Moby to be a chicken
  9. A free range chicken is a happy chicken
  10. Eggs from your own happy chickens really do taste better
  11. Poaching a REALLY fresh egg is so much easier than one even a week old (and I suspect most shop bought eggs are at least a week old)

So, now for some pictures of my girls. Next time I’ll give you my quick no fail method of poaching an egg.

Chickens on a mission

Chickens on a mission

Hector thinks someone might have a treat for her

Hector thinks someone might have a treat for her

Tommy doesn't lay eggs. She just chooks about and annoys Hector and Achilles

Tommy doesn’t lay eggs. She just chooks about and annoys Hector and Achilles

4 ordinary eggs and the FrankenEgg (it was a lovely double yolker)

4 ordinary eggs and the FrankenEgg (it was a lovely double yolker)

My girls, chooking about like chickens do

My girls, chooking about like chickens do

 

Tags: , , ,

Going to work on an egg (or the arrival of my Greek heroes)

13 Oct

People who know me may know that for some years now I have wanted to have chickens. I don’t really know when this desire first rooted in my heart, but I suspect it was long long ago on summer holidays up at Marbrack, a Galloway hill farm where my Aunt Joyce lived (with my Uncle Frank and 5 of my cousins).

Marbrack had one of those lovely farmhouse kitchens, the real heart of the home. We all sat on a long wooden bench at the even longer kitchen table, with our backs warmed by the rayburn behind us. The same rayburn which occasionally would bring a wee cold dying lamb back to life in the bottom oven (or have I made that bit up?). And the same rayburn which produced all manner of delicious teatime treats, including scotch pancakes (drop scones) freshly made directly on the hot plate.

Anyway, I think we went to stay a few days every summer holidays. My memory is of being a hopelessly shy child, especially around all my big boy cousins, so I spent most of the time close to Aunt Joyce’s apron strings. Spending time in the kitchen was bliss – there was the huge bowl of fresh milk to be brought in from the back kitchen, so I could skim off the cream from the top. And there were cakes to bake. But best of all, there were hens. Each day we would take a pail of scraps out to the hens, and then would look for the eggs. Thinking about it, now I know why there were so many cakes – all those eggs to use up!

For years I lived in London and there was no possibility of having hens in a basement flat, so it wasn’t until my life changed a few years ago that I thought about being able to have my own chickens.

And now that I live in the country I have my own three wee chook chooks.

And thanks to The Song of Achilles being our recent book group book, two of the chickens are named after Greek heroes – well, one Greek hero and one Prince of Troy: Achilles and Hector. The third is called wee Tommy.

And yes, I know these are boys names.

Two things:

  1. I don’t suppose chickens know the difference between a girls and a boys name
  2. If by chance they do, I feel very comfortable with gender dysmorphic / transgender chickens in my coop. And they seem very comfortable with it too.
l to r: wee Tommy, Achilles, Hector

And after three days I’m getting three eggs a day from these wee heroes. When I go out in the morning and call them they come running out of their wee hen house to see what treats I might have brought them, and they peck around my feet. I’ve learnt that shoes with shiny buckles are too enticing for chickens. And that a corn on the cob on a string is the best sport for chickens in a coop.

So, there will be many more pictures, and many recipes for what to do with an egg laid by a Trojan Prince. But for now, I give you my failsafe boiled egg for breakfast recipe.

The perfect boiled egg

Now, of course if you have access to a super fresh egg, straight from a Trojan Prince that is what you should use. Otherwise, just use an egg from an egg box. But I hope your egg is at least free range – those batteries are nasty places, and I hate to think of hens cooped up with no space to move about and be inately henny.

And where do you keep your eggs? Mine are kept at room temperature, so they are at the same temperature as everything else when I am baking cakes. I don’t see the point of keeping them in a fridge, they don’t need it. Or not in our cold kitchen anyway! If you have a larder that is where I would keep them.

The best place for eggs

Anyway.

Get a small saucepan, and pop your egg in the bottom of the pan. Pour water over the egg, so the egg is just covered with water. If your egg is super fresh it will sit on the bottom of the pan. If it’s been around a wee while one end might bob up to the top, which is fine. If the whole thing properly floats I would chuck it – it’s been around too long and may be icky.

Place the pan over the heat – a medium heat is fine – and bring to the boil.

At this point you should make your toast if you want any.

Once the water is properly boiling, put your timer on for one minute. The water should be properly boiling, not like wild rapids so the egg is being thrown about the pan, and not a wee soft simmer, but something in between.

After a minute, take the pan off the heat.

Get your egg cup ready and pop your egg on the egg cup; if you have an egg cosy, use it – it’s probably something that will make you smile, and we should never deny ourselves the wee joys in our world. Your egg should be at that delicious soft yolk stage. And all you need with it is a scrunch of black pepper, and a teaspoon for breakfast perfection. Of course if you made that toast, then a single slice of hot buttered toast works (perhaps with a scraping of marmite, if you’re feeling in need of a salty hit and some B vitamins).

For a low carb diet a boiled egg (or two) for breakfast is just perfect – in fact for everyone it is the best start to the day, with a wee hit of protein to get you up and keep you going till lunchtime.

Soft boiled egg – the breakfast of champions
Related articles

Tags: , , , ,

%d bloggers like this: