"Frozen hash browns go in the oven at the same time"
The same time as what?
The sausages or the bacon?
Revealed: Perfect timings for creation of exemplary full English breakfast
We know how much most of you Reg readers enjoy a full English breakfast. The crispy saltiness of the bacon. The savoury runniness of the fried egg. The soft sweetness of the baked beans. A proper full English fry-up is a work of culinary art when done well. But depending on how many elements you choose to include, the timings …
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Friday 9th July 2021 20:41 GMT Marshalltown
Frozen hash browns - I am shocked
The best way to do hash browns is to take a smallish potato, ideally a little less than fist sized, maybe lady fist sized. You wash it, make sure it as no bad spots, and grate it coarsely. In a 10-inch (25 cm) pan pour in about 1/8 - 1/16 the inch (3 - 1.5 mm) of oil - it has to completely cover the pan bottom, Start it heating at medium heat. When the oil starts shimmering scatter the grated potato in the hot oil all over the bottom of the pan so the potato layer is as thin as you can get it. Maybe press with a spatula to get the layer thin. Salt it liberally (less of course you are sodium limited, in which case you shouldn't even be reading this). There should be bits of the pan bottom visible or the pan is too small, or the potato is too big. Let it cook for about three to four minutes and check to see if the bottom is browning. The entire mass should lift like a large potato chip. If it does, flip and let the other side have its day in the heat - well not a day, but until the sizzling diminishes. Turn the pan lower - say a bit below medium, let potato cruise a bit, but don't burn it. Lift it out and place on a plate at least as big as the disk of hash browns. It should be crisp, dark golden brown, and well salted. Add black pepper here if you like it. Pop three eggs in the pan and cook how you like them. Slid them on top of the potatos along with any bacon and/or sausage. Being American I don't really worry about mushrooms or tomatoes. You'll get various people saying you should par boil the potato, or wring the moisture out of the freshly grated potato, and these steps might please some, but they aren't nessary in a big enough pan with enough oil.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 08:56 GMT Tom 7
Frozen hash browns go in the bin! To me they have a sort of metalic taste which I guess is some additive or processing residue but whatever it is the smell of it dulls my appetite and it lingers and clings to everything else in the meal even if I dont eat them. With a food processor and a salad spinner you can knock them up almost faster than getting them out of the freezer and that opens up the opportunity for frying them in the sausage and or bacon fat and adding all sorts of things to liven them up even more.
Having said that attending lorry drivers cafes at 5 in the morning on the way home has left me with the opinion that chips (not fucking fries) with a full english means you can have chip butties with it and get your 1/2lb of hangover daily butter requirement at the same time.
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Monday 12th July 2021 07:29 GMT big_D
And Hash Browns are American, not English! I remember them appearing out of nowhere in the 80s. They are not part of a traditional English Breakfast!
Oh, and the bacon should still be juicy and the rind soft.
I remember as a kid, my grandmother used to cut off the rind and I'd eat it raw, while the breakfast was being cooked!
Mines the one with a dripping bacon butty in the pocket.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 09:06 GMT Tom 7
Re: abbreviated, with substitutes
Morcilia from Spain is an acceptable substitute. Indeed the scrambled eggs made with wild boar morcilia and truffles in La Herreria in Cantabria may just be an acceptable substitute for a full english itself. I went in there with a red wine hangover like someone had somehow put a bear suit into my cranium and the flavours and texture got through that. God I'm hungry now!
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Saturday 10th July 2021 13:23 GMT Rol
Re: abbreviated, with substitutes
Blood sausage, I believe is the equivalent in Europe or at least in Italy, when the "Two Fat Ladies" did a bit of cooking and bigged up the idea of using a particular brand of Italian blood sausage, despite the fact they were doing the cooking in England where the gastronomically accepted creme de la creme of black pudding is made just down the road in Bury (Greater Manchester, AKA stolen from Lancashire)
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Monday 12th July 2021 07:42 GMT big_D
Re: abbreviated, with substitutes
Black pudding is a type of blood sausage, Blutwurst. Maybe there is a local version that is close enough?
That said, I generally hate black pudding. The only time I've really enjoyed it was when I was up sailing around the west coast of Scotland. There, it was absolutely delicious. I don't know if it was the salty, fresh air or whether it was a locally made variant that tasted better, but I couldn't get enough of it. Back home, I didn't really like it.
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Friday 9th July 2021 16:16 GMT TeeCee
Or.
Do as I do.
1) Sod using the oven to cook stuff, it's not called a fry-up for no reason.
2) Oven to low heat, big dish lined with kitchen roll therein.
3) Occasionally remove same from oven and chuck completed contents of frying pan[1] into dish.
4) Do eggs last.
5) While eggs fry, divvy up contents of dish onto plates.
6) Lob freshly cooked eggs onto plates.
7) Enjoy.
NB: Hash browns have no place in an English breakfast, being of a foreign persuasion.
[1] e.g. Sausages, Black pudding, Fried bread, Tomatoes, Mushrooms...
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Friday 9th July 2021 17:35 GMT Chris G
Re: Or.
Forget about poncey stalk side up grilled mushrooms, wot's the frying pan there for?
Fried bread for the same reason.
Oil inna pan? multigrade or gearbox? Or for a proper fry up, beef or pork dripping, I prefer beef.
If your fry up is on a Monday morning, an essential part of an English (Really British) Breakfast is bubble 'n' squeak, fried 'til it has slightly crispy bits in it.
A true English/British breakfast is art inna frying pan.
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Monday 12th July 2021 14:45 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Or.
A true English/British breakfast is art inna frying pan.
While I agree in principle, I feel that sadly we sometimes have to compromise with reality. One may, for example, only have access to 4 burners. Or not have 4 frying pans (the horror!).
I personally prefer my bacon grilled. Sausages are very slightly nicer fried, but are fine done in the oven or grill. So grill bacon, oven for sausages. Stovetop for everything else. Frying pans are great, if you've got a big griddle, you can knock out fry-ups so quickly and easily it's amazing. My Mum had this massive cast iron thing that replaced the metal gridwork above two of the gas rings, on her 6 burner hob. It was a thing of beauty - and I could do a fry-up for 6 in no time flat.
Fuck knows why you'd grill a mushroom. Fry them in butter man! Or miss them off entirely, I'm not really a fan.
Bread should be fried in half butter, half oil. But only one slice per person. In general I'd tend to actually do 2 slices per 3 people and put it on a plate in the middle of the table, with toast. Fried bread is one of the less popular options, like black pudding not eveyone likes it.
Mugs of tea. Fresh orange juice.
I'm off to see friends next week. Not seen them in nearly 2 years, what with one-thing-and-another. I'll be on fry-up duty on Sunday morning. 5 greedy people to feed. I'm already looking forward to it! Even though it means cooking in someone else's kitchen, that's not organised how it should be.
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Friday 9th July 2021 17:49 GMT Phil O'Sophical
soda and potato farls.
And that's why the bacon has to be fried, not done in the oven. Briefly dip both sides of the bread in the bacon fat, remove it and pour off the excess fat. Then return the bread to the pan and fry until crisp. I learned that trick from my Dad. Crispy bread, not soaked in grease.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 07:18 GMT Hugh Pumphrey
"NI --> I'd include soda and potato farls."
As a consequence of living in the People's Republic of Sturgeonia for over two decades, I have come to believe that a proper cooked breakfast includes haggis, preferably with black pudding as well. And probably tattie scones, but these are surely so similar to soda and potato farls that you would not want both.
On potatoes, away with this yank hashbrown nonsense. The best fried potatoes are actually the boiled new potatoes you cooked too many of the previous day, fried on both sides until brown and crispy. I can wake up and feel unreasonably excited about the day ahead if I realise that there are leftover potatoes to fry.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 13:36 GMT Rol
I think I'm too old to eat an Irish breakfast - in my experience it takes about an hour from start to finish and involves everything in the cupboards being on your plate, with an attending elderly lady continually replacing every morsel you eat with more.
The ordeal has to be suffered or you incur the wroth of a mighty woman bearing down on you with a grimace and a boiling kettle of water, that was originally intended for the next 5 gallon of tea, but is going to go over your head unless you quickly restart shovelling food in your mouth.
Honestly, me and my mates first watched Father Ted believing it to be a documentary about life on a small Irish island, because it matched our experience to a T, and more T, you will, you will, you will!!!
I loved living there, and the people were so warm and friendly, but all of them were mad as hatters.
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Friday 9th July 2021 16:23 GMT Linker3000
Fry up
Forget the oven.
Forget the hash browns if having fried bread.
Heat the grill on max minus a little bit (95%)
Sausages take 7 + 7 + 7 minutes, turning 120 degrees twice.
Tomato goes on grill after 1st sausage turn
Bacon goes on grill with a total of 10 mins to go.
Eggs fry on lowish heat from last sausage turn.
Add black pudding to grill for last sausage turn. Turn over the black oudding after 3.5 mins.
With 2 mins to go...
Beans go in microwave for 1.5 mins on medium.
Plate the eggs once the microwave starts.
Put bread in frying pan.
Start to plate up the meats and tomatoes when the 21 mins total is reached.
Turn the bread in the frying pan.
Add beans to plate/s.
Add bread to plate/s
Make sure grill and hob are off.
Eat.
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Friday 9th July 2021 16:38 GMT bofh1961
What is the world coming to?
Hash browns are not food, let alone part of a full English. Bubble 'n' squeak is what we want and black pudding too! The eggs should be fried so the edge of the white has got crispy and the yolk is still runny with a pink top. Toast to be supplied continually throughout...
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Friday 9th July 2021 18:32 GMT Daniel von Asmuth
Re: What is the world coming to?
I looked it up and Hash Browns turn out to a an American invention -- suitable accompaniments for hamburgers. They seem to very similar to Swiss rösti. In Europe you can these:
https://producten.makro.nl/shop/pv/BTY-X625071/0032/0021/Metro-Chef-Hashbrown-Rosti-driehoeken-1-kg
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Sunday 11th July 2021 08:22 GMT Piro
Re: What is the world coming to?
What about the potato scallop/fritter? It's essentially a hash brown, and well known in Britain.
Bubble and squeak is a classic English breakfast accompaniment, and is also somewhat similar.
I don't know why so many have suddenly come out against the hash brown, just because the common term for the item is American in origin. Mushed up potato fried up in some vague patty shape is definitely not exclusively American.
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Friday 9th July 2021 16:54 GMT Andy Non
Fried eggs
The Mrs taught me the best way to fry eggs - do them in a separate small frying pan and put a (glass) saucepan lid on the frying pan. Cook on a low to medium heat once the bacon is partway cooked. Done this way the white cooks all the way through without leaving a slimy layer of uncooked white on the top but the yolk comes out runny, as desired.
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Friday 9th July 2021 17:42 GMT The Oncoming Scorn
Re: Fried eggs
Thanks for the hint.
The ex (Mrs Outgoing Scorn) was rather surprised late in our marriage to discover that not only could I cook, but I could do it with minimal fuss or mess & present a meal nicely, rather than her leaving the kitchen looking like the aftermath of surgery at the 4077th.
I have never recorded my timings\sequence of what to cook & when etc, except beans for expediency (Especially as I hate them) last of all in the microwave in one of those little souffle pots.
My perfect FE breakfast:
OJ, tea, bacon, sausage (HP/Ketchup as the mood takes me), fried bread/eggy in a basket, toast. Usually as the result of too much of the icon the night before
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Sunday 11th July 2021 01:55 GMT A.P. Veening
Re: Fried eggs
Try adding a little water to the frying pan, turns to steam and speeds up the cooking of the top of the egg.
No need to add water, eggs contain enough water by themselves to generate the necessary steam, just don't let it escape by lifting the lid (or delaying to put it on).
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Friday 9th July 2021 17:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Do not under any circumstances
use the type of sausage that is shown in the article. That looks like a frankfurter or some other thing that has been processed to hell and back.
A proper sausage only. IMHO, this should be either Cumberland or Lincolnshire types.
Oh, and FU the EU for not understanding that a British Sausage is a thing of beauty and to stop them being sent to Northern Ireland is tantamount to war being declared. Ban that german rubbish in return.
And any sausage that has rusk in it is not allowed. Minimum 90% meat only.
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Friday 9th July 2021 18:26 GMT Blofeld's Cat
On the go ...
My preferred method of obtaining a "Full English" while out and about, is to select the dining establishment with the most sign-written vans outside, as this usually indicates that the proprietor goes for both quality and quantity.
This can generally be confirmed when the menu consists of breakfast offerings which are numbered rather than named.
Remember that a successful day never starts with a croissant and decaffeinated coffee...
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Saturday 10th July 2021 11:09 GMT Eclectic Man
Re: On the go ...
I don't know if they still do it, but I believe that Pete's Eats in Llanberis used to do a good full breakfast, although looking at their web site, they seem to have come over all 'new age' health foody and a gazillion versions of coffee.
I remember the 'cup of tea' there was a pint mug of said beverage. That was when they had photos of climbers on the walls, and you didn't have to look too long before you found the ones of people ice-climbing stark naked*. Those were the days <sigh>.
*Not completely naked, they had helmets, boots, crampons and climbing harness, gauntlets and ice-axes, they weren't -completely- stupid.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 09:32 GMT KBeee
Re: On the go ...
The old Greasy Spoons are getting rarer and rarer now. The best of them would fill you up with good quality food at little cost. I'm lucky to have one near me, literally 200 metres away, that has survived.
A recommended one if you're in central London is the Regency Cafe in Westminster. Full English for £6 in central London is a bargain, though you should add extra bubble 'n black pudding for £2.
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Friday 9th July 2021 19:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
It's not rocket surgery...
1. Whack the oven on and stick your hash browns in on a large Pyrex dish. let it warm up. You are having a fry up you are impatient, you want that fatty goodness.
2. Cook the mushrooms with the sausages. Who doesn't want that fatty juice making those mushroom extra tasty? Brown the sausage. It doesn't need to be cooked , the oven will do the rest and if it doesn't you don't care because you had shit loads of lager last night. Oven should be getting toasty about now. 170 degrees or so.
3. Cook your bacon with the black pudding, once done into the oven it goes. The witch from Hansel and Gretel has shit on me. Everything in the oven.
4. Now is the critical point, do you plum tomato? or do you beans? or do you fry tomato? The choice is yours but only one can go in the oven.
5. Timing is now of the essence. Depending on your previous choice (microwave is acceptable for some of them) you need to time the eggs with the toast. It's not hard just heat the pan whack the egg and when it's all white (fuck off barrymore) hit the toast up.
6. Dish it all up, job done.
And that is how you make a fry up.
Turkey/vegan bacon/sausage or any green stuff is strictly off limits unless you have a beard, drink Starbucks coffee and work in Shoreditch.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 08:56 GMT werdsmith
It's really stupidly simple stuff. No need for timings or special techniques taught by grandmothers and other such bullshit.
You buy quality ingredients and cook them, judge how long by common sense and looking at them to see their cooked state. Only cook the stuff you personally like. Done.
Any technical faff or pedantry can go fuck right off.
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Monday 12th July 2021 15:08 GMT I ain't Spartacus
werdsmith,
I think I disagree here. Some of the hardest meals to cook are actually dead simple. Like the fry-up, or the roast dinner. In each case all you're doing is buying nice ingredients and heating them. There's almost no poncing about with herbs or flavouring sauces. So in theory, it's dead easy.
But what you're actually doing is juggling, and judging timings to a nicety. This scares many cooks, and puts them off trying it. And so we need to help them by admitting that although it is difficult, it's achieveable - and there are techniques to help.
So with a roast, the absolute rule is that the roast tatties (and yorkshire puddings) must go straight from oven to plate. Everything else can be delayed to a certain extent.
With a fry-up, that's the eggs. In my opinion the bacon doesn't keep for more than a couple of minutes, and neither does the fried bread. But everything else is fine. So I aim to have everything done and then after turning over the bacon in the grill pan to have 4-6 pans going all at once with eggs and bread frying. The rest being kept warm in the oven or sitting in the pan it was cooked in on the side. Depending on numbers of people, some back-up fried bread and bacon may have to be in the oven - but for minimum possible time.
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Monday 12th July 2021 15:10 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Alternate method for the crap that supermarkets pass off as bacon...
Or just buy the more expensive dry cured supermarket best brand. Most of them have a range of bacon from shit to nice, depending on how much folding you're willing to give them. For good bacon, I consider it an investment.
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Friday 9th July 2021 20:10 GMT sdjones2001
Lazy day in the office
Overlooking (or not) the lack of any actual practical experiments on the part of this vulture and ripping off the gutter press, the order and timings have all the seasoned wisdom of a fresh-faced and nervous ingénue about to receive a thorough beasting on the first day of boarding school.
As previously set out in the comments, mushrooms are the FIRST item to go in the pan and deserve a long, low and languorous wallow in a little olive oil and a generous application of fresh thyme. We'll come back to these.
Next up are the sausages, GRILLED, like the rest of the meats to produce a healthier infection of protein into the belly, rather than drowning them in their own fat-laden juices. A half-turn at first sign of browning, followed by a quarter and then a final half-turn. At the first turn add the black pudding and then turn with the sausages.
About this time add halved fresh tomatoes to the mushroom pan, on their own side and forget.
Fill a deep pan with boiling, salted and vinegared water, turning down the heat to very low. Swirl the water until a strong vortex friends and then crack an egg into the maelstrom. When it lifts off the bottom the white is cooked through and the yolk runny. Repeat as required.
Halfway through the sausage time, add the bacon and turn with the sausages.
Nuke the beans towards the end to avoid the disappointment of applying a pneumatic drill to the burnt carapace at the base of a pan. Add a knob of butter to the mushrooms to bring forth a luxuriant silky sheen and unctuous sensation as they slide into the gullet.
Timings are an irrelevance - use your eyes and nose, remembering to pay attention to the important details.
Finally, brew tea that won't just hold the spoon upright, but dissolve it utterly.
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Friday 9th July 2021 20:41 GMT MOV r0,r0
Feminist Austin Maxi Burrito
Too many breakfast comments and not enough Fall! What if the chef thought it'd be funny to split the best breakfast they ever made into two courses - because it's not really "Winter (Parts 1 and 2)" is it? It's just Smithy winding us up by spanning one song over the end of side one and the start of side two. He'd pulled another cute trick previously with "Slates" - the best LP they ever made was an EP.
Anyway, my hangovers love Korean noodle soup (salt, liquid, carbs) plus less washing up although all the Koreans I know are currently into Breakfast Burrito...
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Friday 9th July 2021 21:31 GMT Eclectic Man
Hash Browns???
The true English way to cook potatoes for breakfast, is to fry up last night's remaining mashed spuds. This has the added advantage of absorbing most of the fat so leaving the frying pan nice and 'clean'.
Also, my grill is actually inside the oven, so the article is completely unhelpful, and no, I don't have four ovens like a certain Tory MP (https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/15/tory-minister-roasted-four-ovens-swears-two-9545844/), just the one, because I'm (relatively) poor.
A proper 'full English breakfast' has to be fried, and include fried bread (not toast that comes in a later course with your choice of coffee or tea and orange marmalade), fried tomatoes, fried egg, and fried sausage and fried bacon. At least that is what my grandparents used to provide when I were a nipper, and jolly nice it was too.
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Monday 12th July 2021 15:14 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Hash Browns???
I particularly approve of the tea with brekkie, followed by coffee with toast and marmalade. Or often I reverse that.
This is because I'm normally the cook. And I won't face cooking a full fry up without at least having already had 2 fortifying cups of tea. So I tend to do coffee and orange juice with the breakfast, then back to tea for toast and marmalade.
I should add that champagne or cava is also an excellent accompaniment to a fried breakfast.
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Friday 9th July 2021 22:13 GMT John Brown (no body)
No mention of beef dripping?
Oil? Olive oil even! Beef dripping, and not that white "filtered" stuff that looks like lard either! Yer all a bunch of southern pansies!!
Oh, and don't forget. The excess dripping and fat from the bacon and sausages from the pan gets poured into a jar and put in the fridge for tomorrow too. Keep building that flavour!
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Monday 12th July 2021 04:23 GMT nautica
Re: No mention of beef dripping?
"...Oh, and don't forget. The excess dripping and fat from the bacon and sausages from the pan gets poured into a jar and put in the fridge for tomorrow too..."
I'll probably get burned a new one for this, but believe me, it really does work--
When I was a teenager, back in the last ice age, all us guys worked on cars. Most EVERYone worked on cars back in those days (before anti-pollution, EGR, etc; and engines were coated with a ¾" layer of oil, grease, and road dirt). I was at a friend's house one day, and his father, Al, comes in, after some really messy work on his own car, and says, "Jack, where's the bacon grease? It's not above the stove where it's supposed to be."
Turns out that Jack's mum cooked a proper breakfast most every morning with a LOT of bacon for a LOT of people (yes, Virginia, bacon used to be considered a staple, and was inexpensive. Now it's a "garnish", and Jack's family would now be considered profligate ).
Mum rationed a portion of the bacon drippings into a container which sat out all the time; easily accessible for all her car-working-on boys for the sole purpose of cleaning auto grease and grime from otherwise un-cleanable hands!.
Al told me he learned this trick when he was an aircraft mechanic in WW II. It REALLY WORKS....like the proverbial charm...and better than most anything available at auto-parts stores, at very high prices, to boot.
If there's anyone out there who still gets that heady feeling of accomplishment which comes from working with their hands...you can't find a better hand-cleaner than bacon grease (or ham; sometimes a cheaper alternative).
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Saturday 10th July 2021 00:29 GMT Philip Stott
Probably the perfect topic for an (English) flame war!
Personally, haven't had any black pudding that's tasted of anything other than grease, so that's out.
Also mushrooms only grow on Beezlebub's knob, so they're out too.
Once you've binned them, everything but the beans can be cooked in one big frying pan.
If your eggs aren't frying in the fat from your sausages & bacon you're not doing it right.
Job done.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 14:19 GMT ThatOne
Re: Fail
Indeed. I'm not British as you might have noticed by now, but I love a "Full English Breakfast". Unfortunately very difficult to find around here...
Anyway, I don't really care for tomatoes and mushrooms, all I need is bacon, sausages, baked beans, egg, toast. And something to wash it all down. Lager would be nice, but I'd settle for tea...
I admit that's my own taste, and it is right for me. I wouldn't impose it to anybody else.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 00:39 GMT Michael Hoffmann
Commander Vimes style?
And of course, I can't find the book with the quote about the real proper breakfast, by Samuel Vimes.
Something about runny yolks, charcoal crunchy bits something something. Something "tricky order" ending with "you managed it yesterday".
Somebody help me out - or this will be stuck in the back of my brain all day.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 01:34 GMT Inventor of the Marmite Laser
Re: Commander Vimes style?
This?
"They don't go in for the fancy or exotic, but stick to conventional food like flightless bird embryos, minced organs in intestine skins, slices of hog flesh and burnt ground grass seeds dipped in animal fats; or, as it is known in their patois, egg, sausage, bacon and a fried slice of toast."
Terry Pratchett, Mort
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Sunday 11th July 2021 13:05 GMT Dave559
20 minutes!
Indeed. The most important thing about a weekend brunch is to start scoffing it as soon as possible after your brain starts to wake up (and/or after the room has stopped spinning), and you've managed to throw some sorts of clothes on.
Ideally you should have a decent and welcoming cafe within about 5 - 10 minutes' walk of your home, so that someone else can do the fiddly (too fiddly for a brain which has only just powered up, at least) and time-consuming cooking part, and you only have to do the eating part.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 03:12 GMT Falmari
Perfect timings pah!
Perfect timings pah!
Timings don’t matter because the perfect English breakfast has to be cooked by someone else in those cafes (greasy spoons) you used to see many years ago in the UK towns and cities. Also, everything must be fried in beef dripping so no baked beans which seems like a late edition in my youth it was just fried tomatoes.
Now this is from my own experience and direct back-to-back comparison between home cooked and cafe cooked of old.
Growing up in Southeast London around 50 years ago I started a weekend job working on the milk floats 5am 2pm sat, 5am 12pm sun*. Why would they need you on the round on the weekend when they managed during the week? Seems like a 12-year-old in a man’s old worn suit jacket scarf etc looking like a street urchin from Oliver Twist was the ideal person to collect the money no one ever argued and the tips were much better.
But I digress the back-to-back comparison was this. Up at 4am fry my own breakfast out on the round at 5am. At 7am stop at cafe for breakfast all fried, consisting of bread, bacon, portobello mushrooms, tomato (halved into 2) and bubble. With the only choice being black pudding, white pudding, both or neither? There is only one correct choice and that is both.
So back-to-back (3 hours apart) comparison and there was no way I could match the perfection of the cafe fry up for 2 reasons.
To get every thing to be ready at the same time without keeping some warm in the oven would require 3 frying pans like the cafe. But more importantly I would have to have cooked 4 or 5 breakfasts rotating the pans to match the cafe. Which by 7am had been cooking multiple fry-ups just topping up the dripping as needed so the flavour of all the ingredients was permeating all the pans.
* Of course not legal for the delicate youth of today. :)
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Saturday 10th July 2021 07:20 GMT Sgt_Oddball
Hang on....
The cook was moaning about not having an available pan. This implies that the chef in question only posses one pan from which to fry things with.
This is a problem long solved in our house and we've got 2 cast iron pans for meat (both ribbed for her pleasure and flat bottomed) as well as a non-stick that's great for fried eggs (needs no oil) as well some normal pans for the beans.
Having a 5 burner hob also helps somewhat.
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Sunday 11th July 2021 16:23 GMT ThatOne
Re: Title clearly says, "English Breakfast"
> tomatoes, but they've been growing here at least since Roman times
Er, not really. Can't decide if it's supposed to be a joke, but tomatoes were only imported to the old continent in the 16th century. Like potatoes, they originate in the Americas.
That been said, your argument still stands, the recipe for "baked beans" as we know them is more recent than tomatoes.
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Monday 12th July 2021 15:32 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Title clearly says, "English Breakfast"
Don't be down on foreign affectations. Pancakes are bloody delicious!
A stack of American pancakes (functionally identical to Scottish pancakes I think?) with a knob of butter and a glug of maple syrup between each one, is an excellent accompaniment to a couple of fried eggs, bacon and possible sausage. It's a nice alternative - and good if you're cooking brunch for vegetarians.
Another American imported brekkie is the breakfast burrito. Something I enjoy when I've had friends over and cooked Mexican (or Tex-Mex) food.
Leftover salsa spread over a corn tortilla. Add a couple of rashers of bacon or a sausage. Dessert spoon of scrambled eggs and a generous pinch of grated cheese. Wrap up and eat.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 10:43 GMT TRT
FULL English...
Bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms, fried bread/potato cakes, fried/scrambled/poached eggs, black/white pudding, plum peel/fried/griled tomato, chips, toast, mug of tea. Some places on the coast also put on a kipper or a scoop of kedgeree.
Arteries? Where we're going, we don't NEED arteries.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 15:06 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Greasy Spoons...
"They whack everything into a deep fat fryer"
I was down in London working for a while years ago. Went for pie chips'n'gravy at a local greasy spoon and the DEEP FRIED the pies!!! Oh, my fucking gawd, it was horrible.
Mind you, on a tourist visit with my wife, we decided to get takeaway fish'n'chips after a visit to The Tower and it turned out to be what were clearly frozen chips and those horrible pre-formed triangular fish Birdseye sell made from "formed" fish like big fish fingers. 10 fucking quid a portion too! I should know better than to buy stuff near tourist traps. Poor bloody foreigners who had them were probably just having their stereotype image of shit British food reinforced while being ripped off at the same time.
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Sunday 11th July 2021 16:31 GMT ThatOne
Re: Greasy Spoons...
> I should know better than to buy stuff near tourist traps
Indeed. Any food near a tourist trap is appealingly bad and overpriced, all over the world. Why make an effort when the thousands of mindless tourists keep pouring in, day after day? Also, you won't see any of them ever again, so it doesn't matter if they leave satisfied or on the verge of food poisoning. They are like the Persian Undying: For every one who falls, two fresh ones will step in.
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Monday 12th July 2021 14:09 GMT Sherrie Ludwig
Re: Greasy Spoons...
"Mind you, on a tourist visit with my wife, we decided to get takeaway fish'n'chips after a visit to The Tower and it turned out to be what were clearly frozen chips and those horrible pre-formed triangular fish Birdseye sell made from "formed" fish like big fish fingers. 10 fucking quid a portion too!"
American here, who had the pleasure of touring London some years back. Learned that the best way to find good food, particularly breakfast and lunch, was to ask a local shop attendant. Or, when at the Tower, a Beefeater. The pub he directed us to was downstairs near a post office, as I recall, and quite good. We also had a memorable lunch at Covent Garden from a food truck called "Dinner Jackets". Baked potato with your choice of topping, mine was chicken curry, delicious.
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Saturday 10th July 2021 16:30 GMT nautica
Different strokes...
I have seen numerous comments extolling the virtue of 'Black Pudding', and thoroughly denigrating "Hash Browns"...sometimes in the same comment.
Anyone or any group who / which thinks a dish whose base component is pig (or cow) blood is, somehow, to be more desirable than hash-browns deserves haggis, instead. Not the modern version of haggis which can, at least be kept down (temporarily), but he REAL, ORIGINAL version--"...perishable offal quickly cooked inside an animal's stomach, all conveniently available after a hunt...".
I'm beginning to believe a Scotsman friend who maintains that Scottish--and a lot of British--cuisine is based strictly on the dare--"I'll bet you won't eat this!".
"Hell is where the chefs are British and the mechanics are French."--anon
"No one would think “Can’t wait to go to England and eat the cultural food”.--anon
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Sunday 11th July 2021 16:52 GMT ThatOne
Re: Different strokes...
> the French [...] cannot understand people who won't eat offal
I might have misunderstood your point, but French do eat offal, AFAIK as much as the British (or Germans, Italians, Spanish, and so on).
There was a time in the past when food was precious, and when you slaughtered one of your animals, you didn't throw away half of it because those pieces offended your refined tastes. You ate all of it, and even boiled the bones for soup.
As for offal, as a soup it's supposed to be very good against hangovers. In several countries I've visited (France being one of those, Spain and Greece do it too), after a drunk night locals might go to the central meat market halls, where little greasy spoons are open 24/7, and have a good offal soup. It's actually quite tasty if you don't focus on the "yikes, what am I eating here". In Greece they also grill intestines with pieces of liver and herbs in a kind of big roll which is positively delicious. Apparently it's considered a delicacy and is quite expensive too. (Can't remember the name though.)
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Monday 12th July 2021 04:57 GMT nautica
Re: Sacrilege.
Sounds like one of these things would be ideal for creation of the exemplary full English breakfst ...except for the fact that it's limited to only 29 quarts (we hash-brown-eaters don't "do" 'liters', or 'litres'):
https://www.walmart.com/ip/King-Kooker-Frying-Boiling-Combination-Kit-29Qt-10Qt-Pots/676445620
"The metric system really never caught on in the United States, with the exception, of course, of the 9mm handgun..."--Dave Barry
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Tuesday 20th September 2022 19:52 GMT rototype
Re: Multicultural Cardio Breakfast
What the F**k is spinach doing in there? - NOTHING GREEN EVER goes on the plate of a fry-up. I can handle hash browns (or Rosti) but the more british version is Potato waffles.
As regards cooking order - Mushrooms & onions in, then the sausages (good high meat content only, prefereably from the butcher), then the bacon & Black pudding. Tinned tomatoes in a separate pan then when the bacon is done hoof it all out onto a waiting heated plate while you do the eggs then the fried bread in what's left of the fat (add butter to it if you've been a bit sparing on the grease).
Never really been a fan of beans with breakfast or the big grilled mushrooms/tomatoes (if it's grilled then it isn't a fry-up is it!).
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Monday 12th July 2021 10:01 GMT Danny 2
Drink y'self fitter
As an Edinburgh Man breakfast is a warm quarter gill. Followed by microwaved scrambled eggs, toasted tattie scone, fried mushrooms and veggie sausage, cherry red tomatoes boiled to remove their skins. Three minutes tops, nae faff.
On the Perverted By Language tour me and my mate were waiting out front of the gig for a lift home by my dad when the band insisted we help load their gear into their surprisingly crappy transit. I was saved by Brixie who Mark had sent out to buy a carry out. She couldn't find an offie on Lothian Road so I said I'd take her to the nearest one if she bought me a bottle of whisky. Brixie broke the law with an underage wean!
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Monday 12th July 2021 10:02 GMT 89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921
Mushrooms are great whole - throw them into a pan with about half a cup of boiling water and a bit o salt, boil at as high a heat as possible, covered, for about two minutes (there should be clouds of steam venting at high pressure from under or through the lid), then uncover, add a knob of butter and reduce to fry brown while stirring. Awesome. What starts as a large mass of whole mushrooms, becomes delicious miniatures. Thank you Malliard.
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Monday 12th July 2021 10:25 GMT tiggity
No recent interloper stuff such as hash browns or beans (though bubble & squeak may be added if suitable leftovers around)
Bring on the black pudding, as with the bacon & sausages sourced from your nearest award winning local pork butcher.
These days, for health reasons, I grill the sausage and bacon (but do fry the black pudding as it's not great grilled) and the fried bread is similarly replaced by toast.
Replace the traditional portabella style mushrooms with small ones as far quicker & easier to cook (& again health reasons they soak up less fat) .
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Monday 12th July 2021 11:16 GMT OldTM
Boiled Beans!
But, but, what's this about boiling the baked beans, they should be fried as God intended, in the bacon/sausage fat for preference (assuming there's no lard handy). The taste and consistency changes completely and they get a nutty flavour and lovely stodgy texture, mmmmm.
Oh yes and whoever suggested hash browns should be deported back to the colonies! :-D
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Monday 12th July 2021 13:10 GMT Feezer
Mushrooms - Soy Sauce
The mushrooms should be fried separately to every other ingredient in a pan with a little butter, some soy sauce and cracked black pepper.
This not only tastes fantastic but the combination of pepper flakes and soy sauce produces amazing mysterious crunchy black bits (mysterious to your breakfast guests that is)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
