This reimagined English Breakfast is the classic breakfast’s fancy brother. It’s simpler and healthier, made with black pudding, apple and sweet potato hash browns, garlicky mushrooms, poached egg, rhubarb, rose pepper and sausage.
Foes, then friends: my relationship with British food
Fish and chips, bangers and mash, canned beans and a Cockney accent
British food has a terrible reputation around the world. The culprits are, of course, fish and chips, canned beans and flavourless vegetables. Another culprit: all the poor-quality products that are part of the promising-yet-bad full English Breakfast that your cheap central London hotel includes.
Brown sauce, instant mashed potatoes and deep-fried Mars bars
I’ve also never quite understood: brown sauce; frozen dinosaur shaped ready fried potatoes (the kind my flatmate from university had too many bags of); instant mashed-potato powder (that the same flatmate had when he was out of dinosaur fries). Oh and… deep fried Mars bars, which I guiltily admit that I will try before I leave Scotland.
Sorry but…
I, for one, ended up feeling nauseous after every single portion of fish and chips I’ve ever had. I’d give it another go in a top restaurant though. I’ve also had British sausages whose plastic taste and texture made me question whether they were actually edible. Or digestible. I’ve had eggs so oily I considered starting an oil well business. All in all, my British food experience had been terrible – that is, until I moved to Scotland.
Haggis, neeps and tatties
I must admit: I judged haggis a little bit. Mainly because in most pubs the dish looks pretty unappealing. Then I realised how similar it is to drob, a traditional Romanian Easter dish that I love. Slowly I learned that any dish can taste great if cooked properly. As a matter of fact, Angels with Bagpipes’ haggis bon bons and turnip puree are one of my favourite dish!
British produce, I love you!
With a butcher, fishmonger, baker, cheesemonger and drinks shop within ten minutes from my flat, I discovered an exciting British gourmet universe that I embraced and will miss greatly when I’m gone. I’ve tried dozens and dozens of incredibly good ales; I’ve had venison burger, tartare and pie and even went to a farm to buy fresh buffalo meat. Fresh oysters cost a fraction of what they would in Romania and the scallops are so fresh I could nibble on them raw. More than that, one of the best cheeses I’ve ever had is from Somerset.
My once-in-a-blue-moon full English Breakfast
Last weekend I bought some buffalo sausages from Craigie’s Farm, where my boyfriend and I went with the sole purpose of buying buffalo products. I thought that we could have the sausages for breakfast, which kind of made me crave the English breakfast that I usually have once a year. Then I remembered why I only have it once a year: because I find it too filling. I feel so tired all I want to do is go back to bed and spend the rest of the day sleeping.
If I could, then I would…
I also remembered that I like the idea of a full English Breakfast more than the dish itself: I’m not a big fan of the beans, the tomato doesn’t add much flavour, the bacon is usually a bit soggy and I’d rather have a poached egg instead of a fried one. However, I do like the black pudding that they add to the Scottish Breakfast. I also like hash browns, but I would personally bake them rather than fry them. As for the mushrooms, they’re one of my favourite vegetables, but I would also add some butter and garlic to them.
The thought process behind my dish
With my flavour thesaurus helping me pair ingredients, my hunger and recently discovered love of rhubarb, I started putting together this dish. For the hash browns, I replaced normal potatoes with sweet potatoes because I like their sweet flavour. They’re also healthier. I decided to add apples to balance out the fat from the black pudding. Finally, I crushed some hard gingerbread, to enhance the sweetness of the potatoes and black pudding and to add another layer of aroma.
Because both the sausages and the black pudding are fatty, I used some of the fresh rhubarb I had bought from the farm shop. I paired it with some rose pepper, aiming to bring some more acidity and sweetness to the dish.
I kept the mushrooms because their earthiness goes well with the buffalo, but I cooked them with garlic and a bit of cognac, for a little something special.
Finally, because I love them and because the baked hash browns needed something very creamy to make their texture even softer I also added two poached eggs to each dish.
The recipe
This reimagined English Breakfast is the classic breakfast’s fancy brother. It’s simpler and healthier, made with black pudding, apple and sweet potato hash browns, garlicky mushrooms, poached egg, rhubarb, rose pepper and sausage.
Preheat the oven at 200ºC.
Place the black pudding cubes in a large pan and cook until they become brown and start leaving fat.
Add the grated potato, apple and chopped onions and sauté for about 10 minutes.
Mix in the gingerbread, spices, egg and salt and set aside for a couple of minutes
Once cool enough to be able to touch the mix without burning yourself, form the patties.
Place them on parchment paper on a baking tray and bake them for 25 minutes.
When they are done, place them on a cooling rack.
Heat the butter in a pan. Add the garlic, then fry for a minute.
Throw in the mushrooms and sauté until the water is gone and they’ve become golden brown (about 10 minutes). Halfway through, drizzle the cognac and stir well.
Cook the sausages, the start plating.
Place a hash brown, some mushrooms, the eggs, then top them with rhubarb. Finally place the sausages next to the hash browns, sprinkle some rose pepper onto the rhubarb and decorate with pea shoots (or other greens).
Enjoy!
Love, happyholism and nom-nom,
Ioana
