Huevos con bechamel recipe (version 2) (2024)

Regular readers will have seen last week’s Huevos con bechamel recipe (version 1). That was a seriously simple one. This one is a bit more fiddly, and certainly messier… but it tastes bloomin’ awesome! I always think it’s a bit like chicken kiev… without the chicken… or the garlic butter. Or like a Scotch egg without the meat. Okay, maybe it’s just me. Well, my mind just works in an odd way sometimes. Anyway – roll your sleeves up and give this one a go. It’s a corker!

This recipe makes enough to serve two – just multiply the quantities up if you have guests. The bechamel is a thicker one than last week’s so watch those ingredient quantities.

Ingredients

• Foureggs
• 250 ml of full fat milk
• Two heaped tablespoons of flour
• Two tablespoons of sunflower or vegetable oil
• Breadcrumbs (I make my own by grating bread crusts, but you can buy them too)
• Salt and pepper for seasoning
• Pinch of ground nutmeg
• Plenty of olive oil for frying

Method

Before we get onto the method, we need to talk about the eggs. Think of Scotch eggs. A really good one still has a runny yolk when you cut into it. If that’s what you want then you will need to soft-boil your eggs before coating them in bechamel. Personally I find it too fiddly… and I never manage to peel the eggs without breaking them… so I do what so many others do… I compromise and hard-boil mine. So… onto the method then.

• Hard-boil three of the eggs. Peel them and set to one side
• While that’s going on, pop the milk into a saucepan and add a pinch each of salt, pepper or nutmeg.
• Bring it to the boil – carefully though, don’t let it boil over
• In the meantime, in a bowl, mix the sunflower oil with the flour until blended
• Add the boiling milk to the bowl, mixing hard and fast
• Set aside and let it cool
• Cut the boiled eggs in half
• On dish… add a dollop for each egg half
• Place an egg half, flat side down, on top of each dollop
• Smother each egg with more of the bechamel until you have a number of blobby lumps sitting on the plate
• Refrigerate for at last half an hour. The longer the better.
• Get two more bowls out. Put the remaining egg in one and and whisk it, and put the breadcrumbs in the other
• Dunk your blobby egg halves in the whisked egg first and then the breadcrumbs. Do them one by one – and stop moaning that you’re getting mucky.
• Pour your olive oil into a wok or deep saucepan and get it as hot as if you were cooking chips
• Gently place the breadcrumbed eggs into the hot oil and cook until they are golden brown. Don’t put more than three in your pan at any time – so for the quantities above, you’ll be cooking in two batches. You can keep them warm in a low oven until they’re all done.
• Serve hot with salad.

Now if you’re a super duper cook, and you’ve softboiled your eggs, then when you cut into them you will get gorgeous runny yolk escaping. If like me, you’ve hard-boiled yours… then it’s like eating a veggie kiev or Scotch egg.

Enjoy!