Breakfast eggs with sobrasada

It's a self-evident truth that eggs are good for breakfast. It's also clear that pork of all kinds goes well with eggs. This dish joins the dots to make a quick, tasty and pretty damn tasty breakfast/brunch (or indeed lunch or tea).

Sobrasada is a soft, spreadable chorizo somewhat akin to nduja, although made with less evidently dog-food profile pork. I got this one at Brindisa at Borough Market for £4.50 which was ok as it's pretty big. The lady there recommended spreading it on toast or stuffing a chicken with it. I'd imagine it would go sensationally well in a bean based stew with garlic and paprika, or indeed with some shellfish. Funny how spiced pork becomes more seasoning than meat, ready to leand savour and charm to most other foods.

You are going to need -

• spring onions, peppers and/or mushrooms, tomatoes
• eggs
• sobrasada (or nduja or another soft spiced sausage)
• cumin, dried chilli, olive oil
  

I'd say spring onions are near essential for this dish. You could use normal onions but spring onions have the edge as they cook so quickly which keeps the food in the ten-minutes-on-a-hangover bracket. Chuck them in a pan with some olive oil, cumin and chilli flakes. Cook for a few minutes. Add a few sweet cherry tomatoes and some chopped red pepper and/or mushroom. Add the sobrasada. Fry all this for a few minutes so the tomatoes have broken down to make a sauce, the peppers are half way to being soft and the meat gives up some of its oil. Crack the eggs in (two each, natch) and leave on a low heat with a lid on the pan.

The lid helps to cook the eggs and you'll end up with a lovely consistency part way between baked and fried. Have some good crusty bread and you're good to go. They are quite slippery when removing from the pan as evidenced by the plate below!

If you fancy making some sobrasada yourself there is a recipie here. I've found that a little goes quite a long way and fully expect mine to last a while. Thick (and yes - unctuous) it is rich, highly flavoured and more versatile than, say, guanciale. Recommended.

Baked eggs with sage and chilli butter

OK baked eggs are a classic through loads of the world - from a Pakistani spiced version with tomatoes to the Turkish classic menemen, a chickpeas and feta based iteration and the North African staple shakshouka (also popular in Israel apparently, courtesy of the Tunisian Jews). You could easily do a nice UK themed one with leeks and bacon. This, wonder of wonders, is Ottolenghi's version with sage and chilli with a sauce whose taste and savour far exceeds the sum of its parts. It's flippin amazing.

You can peep the original recipe here but the basics are:

• two eggs each
• greens - rocket, spinach, tender leeks
• yoghurt mix (with a little raw garlic)
• butter mix (with chilli flakes and sage)

Pre-heat the oven to a medium heat.

Sweat down your greens in a pan until they are soft. Add them to an oven dish and crack the eggs between the vegetal bolsters. Stick in the oven.

Mix your yoghurt with a little crushed raw garlic. Make the spiced butter - melt in a pan with the sage and chilli flakes and let it cook for a minute or two so the butter solids start to brown slightly and move towards a state of hazelnut aroma, and the sage crisps.

When the eggs are looking done remove and plate up. I found it tricky getting to a point where the yolks were still liquid but the white was set. You may have more luck.

Combinate however you like with the yoghurt and a generous portion of the spiced butter and serve with absorbent Turkish bread.

Oh my days, sheer brunch based heaven. Don't hold back on the butter, it just doesn't make sense to do so. This should be served with some nice coffee (hazelnut?) and some fruit juice. One might even accessorise with some additional greens to balance the various fats and round out the meal. Whatever happens you are in for a treat. (The spiced butter would be great tipped over a fried egg sandwich if you can't be bothered to go the whole hog).

Rose's egg in a basket

 before

My other half cooked this over Christmas and it's quite an unusual recipe that I thought was interesting. It's inspired by a dish that she had as a youngster whilst spending some time in America - eggs in a basket. I've heard of the egg-in-the-hole type preparation with a slice of bread but having it in a full on pastry pie case with cheese sauce was new to me.

 during

If you fancy making pastry then use your normal recipie for a standard savoury pie crust. Shape into pie shells and blind bake until nearly cooked. Add a raw egg to each pie and why not some vegetables in the bottom too? The egg, pastry and sauce are all quite rich, so having some mushrooms or steamed leeks in there could go very well. We had mushrooms.

Finish it off in the oven and add some black pepper which goes with the cheese sauce very well. Make whatever cheese sauce you fancy. We had a simple classic one, with a white roux followed by grated cheese.

after

Potato and stilton frittata

As we have seen frittatas are the ultimate fridge-clearers and most forgiving of evening meals. Fry pretty much anything in the fridge, pour over some whisked eggs and cook on the hob. Finish with a few minute's flash under the grill to brown things.

• eggs
• stilton or other blue cheese
• carrots and potatoes

Add the stilton right at the end - if you add it too early it will all melt away and you will lost the mini molten-cheese pocket effect.

Ice-cream with sauce of maple syrup and Stoli in 2:1 ratio for pudding. This combination is sublime and I suggest you try it.

Turnip and guanciale frittata

I still have a drying crust of cured pig's cheek in the back of my fridge. The guanciale I paired with leeks to make a simple pasta dish has nearly been used up but I had a hunch that the little left would well compliment the lonely turnip below it in the salad draw. Two full and old-fashioned flavours: turnip and pig fat, surely both eaten (possibly in combination?, answers on a postcard) for centuries in farmhouses across much of Europe. We also had lots of eggs in the fridge and lots of eggs usually leads to one thing - frittata.

Oh wondrous egg-based matrix! Ready to receive and cosset the humblest of foodstuffs.

• eggs (quite a few)
• guanciale (or another fatty pork product such as pancetta or chorizo)
• turnip
• nutty mushrooms

Cut the guanciale into small dice. Being so fatty you want to get it really crisp and it's going to be harder to do this with bigger pieces (I wish I'd gone smaller). Set aside.

Fry on a gentle heat to render the fat and being the crisping. Continue until tantalisingly browned.

Cut the turnip and mushrooms into dice twice the size of the meat. Fry the turnip in the pork fat for ten minutes in a fairly low heat to cook and begin to caramelise. Add the mushrooms and fry for five minutes. Turnips respond well to black pepper: add according to taste.

Reintroduce the guanciale.

Beat the eggs and pour into the mixture. When it begins to firm up work over the bottom of the frittata with a spatula to prevent sticking. After five minutes either flip the frittata over by first transferring to a plate or finish under the grill.

Serve with a salad and bread.

with radish and beetroot salad