After almost three years in London, I can say that the traditional breakfast, better known as Full English Breakfast, doesn’t frighten me anymore. My name is Angelina, I have been living in London since 2011 and I work as a cook in a small Italian Delicatessen shop, since 2012 I run my own cooking website at www.angelinaincucina.com. I cook Full English Breakfast almost every day now and I can tell you that I am close to know it to perfection.
The real English breakfast, also called “fry up“, is a very rich meal counting almost 1200 calories in it and it is usually consumed by Britons in the morning, but nowadays it is also eaten as a proper meal during lunch time and even in the afternoon.
The main ingredients that compose this glorious first meal of the day are: eggs (which can be scrambledin butter, fried or poached), white or brown bread, bacon, sausages, fries (but only few places include them in it), stir-fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, baked beans and black pudding sausages.
Have you ever wondered how the traditional English breakfast originated? In the early 800 ‘s, labourers used to eat a nutritious meal in the morning covering their daily caloric needs to work until evening without feeling hunger. During the World War II, however, the traditional breakfast suffered a drop in popularity because it was very difficult to find some fresh goods, such as bacon or eggs, anymore. After the war, it returned up to its former glory but only to be consumed during the weekends, due to the high costs of the food in the post war period and also because sedentary jobs increased and people didn’t need this kind of energetic start anymore.
The steps to make a perfect English breakfasts are not so many, but one in particular is essential: you should try to put and maintain a “reasonable” distance between eggs and beans, putting a pork sausage in the middle, as a barrier, to avoid that beans sauce would turn the crispy bread into a soggy one.
Let’s see now how to prepare a perfect English breakfast using few simple ingredients.
For a person:
– 200 gr of mushrooms
– 2 fresh eggs
– 1 small sausages (preferably)
– 1 tomato “bunch” mature enough
– 200 gr of canned beans in sauce, ready-made
– 2 slices of bacon
– 2 slices of white bread
Heat up a small frying pan with a little of olive oil and crack inside 2 eggs. Cook according to your preferred doneness. Once cooked, remove the eggs from the Pan and cook the bacon. Do not add oil because the bacon, getting hot, will release some of its fat and it will cook in that. Allow it to cook well on both sides, until it will become pretty crispy. Remove the bacon but don’t throw the fat away. Cut tomatoes in half and place them into the pan with the cutted side down. Cook them on high flame for about a couple of minutes and then add a knob of butter. Doing this way, the tomatoes will form a delicious crust, so yummy!
Remove the tomatoes from the Pan but leave the fat: use it to Cook the sausages over medium heat, covering them with a lid and turning them often, so that each side is well cooked.
Once the sausages will be cooked, remove them from the Pan and now the last part: it is time for mushrooms, which you have previously cleaned them and cut into slices not too thin. Cook adding a pinch of salt and, why not, a wedge of garlic.
Mushrooms will take a very short time to be ready, so be careful not to overcook them. Remove the mushrooms from the pan and now you are ready for the last step of the preparation: the easiest. Open a can of beans in sauce (the most famous is the brand Heinz) and put the contents into the pan to heat it up. When the beans are hot enough you are ready to assemble the dish. Meanwhile, with the help of a toaster or the oven on the modality grill, toast some slices of bread until fine golden on both sides.
If you want all the ingredients to be hot and ready at the same time, use more pans to cook each thing. Otherwise use the method above described and if the meantime some of your ingredient is going to cooled down, do not worry: …just heat it up in the microwave for about a minute.
Good “fry up” to you all.
After almost three years in London, I can say that the traditional breakfast, better known as Full English Breakfast, doesn’t frighten me anymore. My name is Angelina, I have been living in London since 2011 and I work as a cook in a small Italian Delicatessen shop, since 2012 I run my own cooking website at www.angelinaincucina.com. I cook Full English Breakfast almost every day now and I can tell you that I am close to know it to perfection.
