Scotch Eggs

Scotch Eggs range in quality: there is the type found as part of a depressing cold buffet, wrapped in bright orange slightly moist bread crumbs, sometimes quartered or filled with chopped egg and salad cream rather than whole egg. At the other end of the scale are freshly-cooked ones where the egg yolks are runny. There are even the divine miniature versions made with quails' eggs, handed round as canapés if you're lucky.

My pupilmaster, Robert Leonard, once told me that he considered Scotch Eggs to be of "no interest whatsoever", but I wondered at the time whether it was due to the fact that I had bought one to have over lunch with one of his clients. They are not elegant things to eat, and, I suppose, a bit like the Cadbury's cream egg, the question "How do you eat yours?" springs to mind. I like mine with a dab of mayonnaise (on the egg) and a dab of Dijon mustard (on the sausage meat). The important thing is for the sausage meat to be of exceptionally good quality: neither too dry, nor too wet. Then they are worthy accompaniments for a stiff walk.

I once had something called a Welsh Egg, which turned out to be foul: wrapped in mashed potato rather than sausage meat.