Saturday, September 4, 2010

United Kingdom - Full English Breakfast


Background
The full English breakfast is a well-known meal, so our research was a simple Google search. The BBC Food site provided an excellent menu and a preferred sequencing of ingredients to best use the grease produced by the sausage and bacon. The basics of the English breakfast are sausage, bacon, baked beans in tomato sauce, browned mushrooms, toast, tomatoes, a fried egg, and black pudding. Naturally, you serve the breakfast with tea.

One element of the English breakfast we omitted was the black pudding (a type of blood sausage) mostly because it was by far the most difficult item to procure, and we already had enough meat for two people. Kitty has also eaten plenty of tasty blood sausages in Asia and feels that we were not shirking our duties by skipping over it here.  Should you also be unable to find black pudding, these other blood sausages are available at Asian markets; the idea being similar though the taste rather different.

(In U.K. English, the word pudding also describes a bready or milk-based dessert. I became interested in how the same word came to describe two very different dishes. Fortunately the country that posed this etymological challenge also created the solution in the Oxford English Dictionary. The word's first appearance in Latin is in the context of sausage in 1287. The first time it describes a dessert is in 1543. The shared use of the word comes from both dishes being cooked in water while encased in something.)

Recipe
Please see the BBC Food site for the recipe.

Results and Discussion
“Full” is a very accurate modifier for English breakfast. I was not really hungry again until dinner. It also covers a full range of flavors and textures. You have have the savory, dense, and flavorful sausages with the golden casing giving them a wonderful snap. We got these at Savenor's in Cambridge and they were spectacular and reasonably priced. The sweet fresh and moist tomatoes have an excellent contrast of being warm on the surface but still a little cool in the middle; the mushy beans and lightly crunchy toast provide a nice contrast
The sequencing of the elements and grease management are also important for getting the right results. Under optimal condition one would have a griddle and some slightly fattier bacon so we could spread the grease around and have more things cooking at the same time. The bacon we chose was much too lean and as a consequence we had to supplement with a lot of olive oil. The single pan approach does help cut down on dishes which is very nice.
This breakfast is very similar to the southern breakfast I learned growing up watching my grandfather. It is exactly what he would make minus the beans and mushrooms. He also taught me the importance of good grease management.
We will be making its counterpart, the full Irish breakfast, in about 2 years.

2 comments:

  1. YUM - I got totally addicted to the cooked tomato at breakfast in the UK and grease management is always a good thing! I believe you made the right choice re: black pudding.

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