… sometimes the only way to recover (from anything as wide ranging as a hangover, through non-specific illness to basic hunger) is with a classic fry up… but the bones were tired and I’m coming down with a cold… complete with blocked but runny nose, so the last thing I wanted to do was stand in front of the stove and cook… this brunch is basically ‘breakfast in the oven’ and apart from the toast and of course the scrambled eggs everything is baked to perfection… it’s so easy.
…basically place everything in an oven proof dish and roast… start with the sausages, then as they start to bake add the mushrooms and bacon into the same dish… its a wonderfully easy idea and you do very little but enjoy the golden baked glory.
my sausages were Lincolnshire chipolatas and along with the un-smoked back bacon, came from our local butcher who recently won the BBC butcher of the year award… the bread was an amazing Gouda bread from the Cheese Shop in Louth, which had hunks of Gouda deeply embedded within it’s hearty goodness… I also used the remainder of my rich tomato sauce made for the pizza on Friday…
…a far as the scrambled eggs are concerned I have very specific rules… which I follow to the letter and always have perfect successful eggs every time… that I picked up from HRH Delia… 2 eggs per person and one extra per meal and a splash of milk, whisked till fluffy, then poured into a heavy bottomed hot buttered pan… the trick is to whisk the eggs continuously… stopping only to occasionally remove the pan from the heat to keep it from sticking… you keep whisking till they are just before you like them (so for me this is slightly runny) and then take them off the heat till ready to serve as they will continue to set in the pan… don’t season till after they are cooked or they will go grey… but then plenty of pepper…
…now I’m about ready for bed and it’s only 2pm…
eat and of course, enjoy!
There's nothing quite like a proper English breakfast – baked or fried, to set you up for the day or …. even for bed.
Ditto Choclette- at any time of the day a fry up is soul food! Do you ever have black pudding with it?
I LOVE black pudding but so few people do… so it's hard to serve it… just had massive falling out with idiots on a facebook page… they're all a bunch of children who don't appreciate at a good meal…
Dom I'm intrigued…what is this all about- I'm inherently nosey about food!?
oh… i'm a 'fan' of a facebook page called 'we love the full English breakfast' and I posted a picture on it and everyone was really nasty… turns out they only like breakfasts from chain food restaurants and dont care for our kind of home-made type of offerings … just got a bit grumpy about it.
quite like your one pot 'fry up' method, gonna have to remember that one.
As a Yank reflecting on 'the English breakfast' … we loved it. OR… I should ask … was it an English breakfast? We were in Cornwall staying at a small farm that rented rooms and our hostess left a 'groaning board' of muffins and toasts with butter and jams … in came the plate with eggs, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon and fried potatoes with onions and bits of green pepper. At 8 AM it was completely overwhelming to me. I did try to tank up a bit, though, because it looked so good! My dear husband totally tanked up… and then, when I was ready for food at noon, he was looking at me like I was a complete whimp.
@susan… I know how you feel… I usually have to have a long walk after a big breakfast and then not eat lunch till 2pm!
@gary… i was thinking that you could actually just crack an egg into the oven proof dish on top of the rest of the items and do a 'baked' fried egg… if you do it at the last minute you wouldn't even need to get out a frying pan!… i'm a genius!
Dom most people who are nasty about things like that are probably jealous coz you can actually cook. Take no notice xx your blog is fab and as that is a stellar indication of your cooking, you're officially great!
that could work actually, if you were careful and watched it, i reckon it would overcook very quickly. just got to figure out how to get the toast in there as well.