The Breakfast Topic

[SobaAddict70]

I find British breakfasts delectable in theory but generally unsuccessful inside the U.K. The idea of a fried egg, a lightly broiled tomato, a whopper of a banger, rashers of bacon and a slice or two of gammon, along with a side of baked beans on toast and some sauteed mushrooms all sharing a plate is a Dionysian melding that would jump-start the most sluggish metabolisms. But in England, the banger is too often bland and larded with cereal, the tomato and its bread crumbs soggy, the egg over- and the bacon undercooked and the side of beans just inexplicable.

All About Breakfasts (Jonathan Reynolds) (from this weekend's NYTimes DIGEST. You may have to scroll down for the appropriate link.)

Although the quote above relates to the classic English breakfast, Mr. Reynolds waxes poetic about all sorts of non-traditional breakfasts that are available options in today's society. What do you like to have for breakfast? Feel free to share any recipes as well.

Soba

[snowangel]

Bacon. Perhaps with eggs, waffles, or pancakes.

If not bacon, larb.

Failing either bacon or larb, leftover green curry on rice.

Either bacon or larb for breakfast sets me off well for the day and leaves me smiling.

And, always with what seems like a gallon of strong coffee (plain, no sugar nor dairy) and two glasses of ice water.

[ludja]

So many favorites...

Something I learned recently out of Jamison and Jamison's "A Real American Breakfast" (egullet-Amazon link)

is a great scramble: Brown Butter Avocado Scramble.

The basic idea is to blend eggs with some minced roasted garlic, cream, squirt of hot sauce, s & p. Then brown a good amount of butter in pan. Add eggs and softly scramble eggs. After slightly set, fold in bite-sized chunks of avocado and cook a little longer. Important not to overcook... these are decadent and wonderful. The nutty flavor of the butter and avocado is just great.

Re: your reference to English breakfasts my Mom used to make us kippered herring cooked in the oven with cream, butter, s&p. (Don't know if this is really English as we aren't, but even as little kids we loved this.) I haven't made it in a long time though.

Favorite breakfasts in N. Carolina were Country Ham biscuits and pecan waffles.

Hmmm... and one of my other favorite breakfasts I've had at Cafe Pasqual's in Santa Fe a few different times-- Huevos Motolenos, a Yucatan specialty. Their version is two eggs over easy on blue corn tortillas served with black beans, sauteed bananas, feta cheese, peas, roasted jalapeno salsa and green chile sauce. All I can say is---it works!!! I haven't tried to recreate this at home yet.

Mentioned this on the anti-Atkins thread re: favorite breads-- but I love fresh kipfel rolls in Austria with sweet butter and wild honey or apricot preserves. (I've never seen this type of roll here but would be overjoyed if I did).

Well.... I better move along and let others share their favorites.

Breakfast

edited to add: That Spider Bread linked from the NY Times looks very good!

Edited March 8, 2004 by ludja (log)

[Dave the Cook]

First of all, he's dead-nuts on about the English version of the English breakfast, in my experience.

Second, I want to go to Greece and have lamb chops for breakfast.

Third, his mention of Brennan's reminded me of one of my favorites, which makes use of the previous night's etouffee (on the rare occasion when there's any left):

Mix the rice with a beaten egg and a bit of flour, then press into cakes and griddle in butter.

Warm slices of Smithfield ham, and place one on top of each rice "cake".

Mount a poached egg, then ladle reheated etouffee sauce over it.

Top with the most perfect leftover crawfish tail or shrimp you can retrieve from the gravy.

[Dana]

One of my favorite breakfasts is:

Cold pizza

Diet Coke

I call it:

Breakfast of champions

Although, tomorrow I'm having the avocado scramble as described by ludja. It sounds awsome.

[nessa]

Most importantly, coffee.

I love cold spaghetti for breakfast. I also love leftover cold steak for breakfast. Chinese tea eggs, scrambled eggs, huevos rancheros, many varieties of breakfast burritos, eggs benedict, bacon. bacon and more bacon.

Hot rice with butter, cold rice with milk and sugar....

Steak and eggs and hashbrowns. Poached egg on toast.

Obviously I'm not picky. Anything but cold cereal. Well once in a blue moon, maybe.

More often than not, its a chinese tea egg or two, or maybe bread with peanut butter and something sweet like jam or apple butter, as I drive to work.

Edited to add: Grits!!!!!

Edited March 8, 2004 by nessa (log)

[purplewiz]

What do you like to have for breakfast?

My preferred breakfast depends on the time of morning I'm eating.

If it's early, before work, like 7am, the most I can stomach is cold cereal (preferably pre-sweetened, the more sugar the better) and a banana. My stomach simply does not like accepting food at that hour. Especially not coffee.

But if breakfast is later, almost to the point of lunch, I love eggs, bacon, waffles, and coffee. Nice soft Belgian style waffles - I really don't like crisp waffles - soft bacon (yes, I'm a heretic), and eggs over medium or scrambled dry/well. That probably makes me doubly a heretic, but I really don't like runny scrambled eggs, I want them COOKED. My husband thinks I'm nuts, but I just take his eggs off earlier than mine, and we're both happy.

(And don't even start with runny omelets. I don't care if it's the classic way, it's undercooked to me.)

However, my favorite breakfast of all is the Dutch Baby Pancake at The Original Pancake House chain. It's like a huge popover that you make your own "syrup" over from butter, lemon wedges, and powdered sugar. Even though I cook them myself on occasion, I still like theirs the best, even if their coffee is the absolute worst.

Marcia.

[MichaelB]

For a late breakfast yesterday I made grilled cheese, bacon and tomato sandwiches topped with fried egg.

Sort of an American Croque Madame

[fifi]

If I were Queen (wait, I am Queen, yeah) I would have breakfast at Brennan's every morning of the world. But that is another story.

My "on the run" breakfast is a McD's sausage and biscuit in the car. I wrote a pornagraphic paen to that delicacy in my food blog long ago. Previously it was a sausage kolache (hot polish) at the Kolache Shop before my office moved.

My all time favorite is a traditional Mexican breakfast buffet with chilaquiles, scrambled eggs with salsa and cheese, and lots of refried beans on the side. I usually pass on the rice.

I enjoy English breakfast when traveling there. But I really don't get the broiled tomato. Well... I don't really like tomatoes.

When I am in The Hague, I enjoy the various cold cuts that are served and enjoy them with my eggs. The seasoning is very different, I can't quite figure out what it is, and somewhat addicting.

I really can't stand sweets at breakfast. If I do venture into the pancakes or French toast, it is a late brunch. And that is rarely. When I decide I need to eat more oatmeal, it is with butter and Cajun seasoning.

However, inexplicably, I have my coffee with cream and sugar.

[slbunge]

The theme of my favorite breakfasts always seem to be a runny egg yolk.

Well done hash browns with fried eggs (over medium), and buttered wheat toast.

Soft polenta with spinach and poached eggs.

Griddled polenta with fried eggs and cooked red salsa.

And, of course, breakfast is always served with a hot cup of strong, black coffee.

Edited March 8, 2004 by slbunge (log)

[suzilightning]

i can't abide traditional breakfast foods - never could, doubt i ever will.

when we would go back to the east end(of long island) my favorite breakfast was flounder fried in rendered baconfat, boiled potatoes and lima beans.

this morning i had 98% fat free hebrew national hot dogs and scalloped potatoes made with gorgonzola and coffee

[Squeat Mungry]

When I am in The Hague, I enjoy the various cold cuts that are served and enjoy them with my eggs. The seasoning is very different, I can't quite figure out what it is, and somewhat addicting.

Fifi, are you regularly in The Hague? I lived there for two years when I was growing up. I remember the breakfast cold cuts fondly, but have no idea how they are seasoned.

(This morning I had brown-sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts for breakfast. Haven't had them for years, but had a craving last night and ran out to buy them. Go figure.)

Cheers,

Squeat

[fifi]

(This morning I had brown-sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts for breakfast. Haven't had them for years, but had a craving last night and ran out to buy them. Go figure.)

Squeat, on those pop tarts, please check in at Incredibly Strange Cravings.

I am in The Hague about 3 times a year for a couple of weeks at a time. The cold cuts that most intrigue me are the ones that kind of look like thin sliced bologna but the spicing is really different. I would love to know what it is. I suspect some cardamom in there somewhere but I am not sure. Anyway, there is something sublime about a bite of those soft scrambled eggs and that meat that is just magic.

[Moopheus]

I like chocolate cake for breakfast, but the wife does not agree.

[Dignan]

I skip breakfast most of the time, so if I'm eating it I know what I want:

2 eggs over medium - they have to be medium so that the yolks run when I break them into the grits and mix them up, but I don't want to be making egg and grits soup.

Spicy patty sausages.

The aforementioned grits - they're not very good most places, too processed and already soupy, which can be a problem when mixing your grits and eggs as I pointed out above. Salt and pepper liberally.

A biscuit -- As long as it is fair-sized I only need one, 'cause it's for sopping up whatever portion of my grits and eggs mixture which can't be brought to mouth by way of fork. I don't put butter or preserves on it, so it's even better if it's got good amounts of lard in the recipe. (Sausages can also be dipped into the grits and eggs for an added treat).

That's my breakfast, with one exception. A local eatery has a pretty good weekend menu that features venison patty sausages. So once in a while I'll get those with couple of fried eggs and a couple of their okay biscuits. Here's what to do. Halve a biscuit, put on a sausage patty, then one of the eggs (can be a surprisingly tricky manuever to complete properly without getting egg everwhere), and mash the top back on your biscuit (because now is the time to get egg everwhere). Ignore the hash brown potatoes. Eat your venison sausage and egg biscuit sandwhich. Repeat.

[bergerka]

I like chocolate cake for breakfast, but the wife does not agree.

I'm with you. Chocolate cake with whipped cream is even better.

I like waffles, too. If you spread 'em with Nutella they're even better.

and I like blueberry pancakes, raspberry pancakes, huckleberry pancakes, blackberry pancakes, strawberry pancakes, banana nut pancakes and chocolate chip pancakes, plus any other kind of pancake you can come up with.

and bacon.

K

[ellencho]

I like breakfast foods for dinner. Although where I went to school seemed to ruin my appetite on a daily basis, I was always excited when they had breakfast for dinner.

A lot of folks in asian countries eat rice, soup, meat, fish, veggies etc for breakfast. So in my house, oftentimes, we'll eat our leftovers from the night before for breakfast the following morning. It took me a while to understand why non-Asians think it's weird to eat leftover pasta, or chicken, or whatever as my morning meal.

Lastly, while I was visiting home, my dogs and I ate fluffernutter sandwiches with a glass of milk every morning for breakfast. My mom was horrified, but more so because I was using sliced sandwich bread, instead of the good Italian bread that we had.

[cakewalk]

Breakfast is my favorite meal to eat out, as long as it's leisurely (e.g., no work that day). Fresh eggs, any style, but must include fried onions. Brioche toast. Home fries, french fries, any kind of fries. No pancakes! (It's a texture thing.) Endless coffee. New York Times crossword puzzle. Repeat until dinner.

On work days I eat when I get to work: fruit, yogurt, granola. It's great in the summertime when there's wonderful different fruits to be had. At work they always laugh at me because I'll walk out of the kitchen with a bowl piled this high with cut-up fruit. I eat it at my desk all morning. Yum.

[gus_tatory]

...And, always with what seems like a gallon of strong coffee (plain, no sugar nor dairy) and two glasses of ice water.

for me, no coffee: tea. plain green tea, like three cups of it, with about 1/2 tsp of vanilla-sugar per cup.

if it's food, it's a banana. i don't eat much in the mornings.

except for the occasional bacon 'n' eggs thing on the weekend...

[Larry]

No matter what my breakfast must always include a grapefruit, that is the only condition. It is usually accompanied by a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and tea.

I despise pancakes, waffles and the typical eggs and bacon breakfasts.

[foodie52]

Migas with crispy bits of corn tortilla, lovely little brunoise of fresh jalapeno and runny cheese coursing through it all! Accompanying that: fresh, hot flour tortillas and perfectly cooked refried pinto beans.

A fresh pico de gallo alongside.

Washed down with champage and a splash of oj.

Or a mango margarita....

[Busboy]

Colorado isn't much of a food place but one thing they do dang well is their spin on huevos rancheros -- beans, fried potatoes, eggs, fired pork products and, most important, green chili. Plus, of course, flour tortillas, to scoop it all up with. It's so universally available that it's obviously a regional specialty -- not a faux specialty, like Denver omlettes -- and has so many variations atop the basic combo that every diner in the state has a distinctive taste.

It is the perfect transition between a night of drinking and a morning on the slopes.

[tryska]

god breakfast is my favorite meal, and i'll eat breakfast foods at any time of day.

i go through cycles tho.

i love french toast or waffles with soem ham or bacon and maple syrup.

biscuits slit in half with a sausage patty on each half and the whole thing covered in cream or sausage gravy.

eggs benedict

scarmbled eggs with cheese and hot sauce with some wheat toast.

fried egg sandwiches with s&p and ketchup on buttered wheat toast.

eggs over easy with some hash browns (the shredded kind, not the homestyle) with uhh..buttered wheat toast and lots of S&P.

all with strong hot cafe au lait - sometimes sweetened, sometimes not.

[tastykimmie]

i can't abide traditional breakfast foods - never could, doubt i ever will.

when we would go back to the east end(of long island) my favorite breakfast was flounder fried in rendered baconfat, boiled potatoes and lima beans.

this morning i had 98% fat free hebrew national hot dogs and scalloped potatoes made with gorgonzola and coffee

my sentiments exactly. i eat food when i am hungry. i don't know about everyone else, but food does no have a "eat this at__am/pm". i eat pork chops for breakfast. sometimes, fried chicken, steak. whatever is available and fills me up. i'll eat pizza, chinese food whatever.

LIFE IS GOOD

[mcdowell]

when we would go back to the east end(of long island) my favorite breakfast was flounder fried in rendered baconfat, boiled potatoes and lima beans.

I'm with you on the fish.

This morning was pan-fried trout, cubed hash browns w/ onions, garlic, & fresh rosmary, and a fat biscuit with milk gravy.