Difficulty
Time 25 mins
Servings
12
Full English Breakfast Tapa
The 'Full English Breakfast', often referred to as the Full English, the Fry Up, the All Day breakfast.. However you wish to term it, it's a national heritage which is recognised all over the world and of course comes in many different guises. My take on this dish attempts to encompass everything that's great about this famed breakfast and present it in tapas form, with fantastic results.
Ingredients
Preparation
Preparation is key, as with all cooking, especially if what you're attempting to prepare is complicated, and as my father used to say - to make one bacon roll is easy, but to make one hundred bacon rolls is difficult. So make sure that you have everything ready in advance of cooking so that when it comes to arranging the dish, everything is just that little bit more straight forward.
Tip: For this tapas recipe I have used fresh, organic ingredients where possible, and trust me it does make an incredible difference, if this is not possible for what ever reason, don't worry, the experience of having a Full English Breakfast in one amazing mouthful will still be amazing.
12 Quale eggs for frying
Cherry tomatoes
2 Chipolata sausage
Black pudding
Button chestnut mushrooms
Streaky bacon
2 large Maris Piper potatoes
Onion
Chives
A good quality thick bread
A good quality brown sauce to garnish
The Hash Browns
Bacon, Sausages, Black Pudding
I highly recommend making homemade hash browns as a base for building upon. This quick approach couldn't be simpler, and far healthier than the shop bought equivalent.
Cut the potatoes into quarters and part-cook in the microwave for around 2 minutes, remove and put into cold water for 5 minutes, remove and pat dry.
Grate the potatoes with the skins on, though you won't be using the skins, it just helps when grating.
Grate half an onion and mix into the grated potato.
Grab a mini handful of the mixture and flatten into a thin circle shape, place onto an oiled sheet of foil, repeat the process. Grill these until golden brown and somewhat singed at the edges.
The bread simply needs to be cut into triangular shapes and lightly toasted.
Recently, I've been super conscious about exactly what I am putting into my body, especially when it comes to unnecessary fats and calories. A great tip for cooking bacon, especially streaky bacon which tends to carry more fat, is to pre boil out the fat in the bacon in a frying pan before you grill it, though this only really works if you have a good quality non supermarket water filled bacon. Lightly grill the bacon until light and crispy. Tear the bacon streaks into small sections and place to one side.
Cook the sausages as you would normally do, I grilled mine for this recipe, when cooked cut into thin slices at an angle.
Slice the black pudding into thin slices and quarter, fry this with the bacon and for the same time.
The Other Stuff
Difficulty
Slice the mushrooms into thin slices and lightly fry. Use only the bottom third of the cherry tomatoes for this tapas, it's important not to overload the dish, but also for the aesthetics; we are after all trying to create a mini version of this dish. Fry the tomato tips in the same way that you would fry a normal tomato, but for less time. Cook a small amount of baked beans for the garnish. Fry the quale eggs as you would fry a chicken egg, but again for less time.
I've given this dish a '2 chef hat' difficulty as timing is really crucial for this dish, and because of the sheer level of ingredients that are present and need to pre prepared, for example the hash browns. Trust me, it is a great tapas dish, and if like me you enjoy playing with your big food somewhat in always preparing the perfect last mouthful, this perfectly prepared mouthful will leave you wanting more. I have included a step-by-step guide below to show my build process.
Photobook
We'd love to hear from you
Please get in touch if you have tried this recipe, I would love to hear your thoughts on how easy you found it to make, how delicious you found it, or if you have any suggestions on how to improve this dish or if you have suggestions for future tapas, I am more than open to posting recipe ideas and photos.
Contact here to get in contact.
