Classic Scotch Eggs

The smell of sage in sausage meat is one of those kitchen smells that takes you somewhere. For me it's a Saturday morning, hands cold and slightly damp, wrapping meat around eggs at the counter while the radio mumbles in the background. Scotch eggs are not difficult. They're just fiddly enough to feel like you've made something.

I don't know when I started making these, but I know why I keep making them. A good scotch egg, cut in half to show the soft yolk running into the seasoned meat, the breadcrumb shell shattering under your teeth, is one of the more satisfying things you can put on a table. It travels well. It feeds a crowd without fuss. It is, in the best sense, proper food.

The secret, if there is one, is the yolk. Six and a half minutes in boiling water. Not a minute more. You want it set enough to handle but still soft at the centre, so that when you cut through the finished egg the gold spills out into the meat. Get the yolk right and everything else follows. The sausage meat wants sage and a scrape of nutmeg, a smear of English mustard for heat. Good pork, simply seasoned. We're only making dinner.

These are best eaten at room temperature, which makes them ideal for a picnic, for a lunch that has to travel, for the kind of afternoon where people gather in the garden and help themselves. Wrap them in greaseproof paper. Take a jar of mustard. A few leaves wouldn't go amiss. That's it.