It's all in the game: Christmas Breakfast 2012

Deep fried poached eggs on toasted muffin, dry cured Cumberland bacon, fried sweetbreads, sautéed goose liver, mushroom stalks and venison chorizo , smoked salmon and Nigel Slater’s

Portabella mushrooms with blue cheese and walnuts
I saw Nigel Slater do this on his simple meals programme and thought this would be smashing as part of our Christmas Breakfast.

The rest of the ingredients:

Muffins, crispy dry cured bacon, smoked salmon, pressed fried sweetbreads, Venison Chorizo, sautéed mushroom stalks, fried goose liver, deep fried poached duck egg and sauce hollandaise.

I had been luckily enough to get some fresh sweetbreads while shopping at that fantastic farm shop just off the M7 in Westmorland, this is also where the duck eggs, chorizo and bacon came from.

Tomato juice or Orange juice

Spanish Cava

Coffee or tea

Nigel’s blue cheese mushrooms

You shall need:

Large Portabella mushrooms 1 per person (skin and remove stem but keep for later, the stems not the skin, this went into the stock pot)

A nice blue cheese (we had Dorset Blue Vinney)

Handful of chopped walnuts

A good knob of butter

A sprig of thyme leaves removed.

50ml Water, salt and pepper (you may not need either)

Melt the butter in a pan and add the thyme leaves,

place the mushrooms in the butter gill side down and allow to soften over a low heat,

when they start to give off their juices (small golden pearls of juice will appear on the cup) turn
them gill side up and add the water, cover and allow to cook through.

Just let them slowly simmer, the juices will concentrate.

Just prior to serving crumble some blue vinney into the cup and when it has turned gooey, top with the walnuts and cover again.

Sweetbreads

I got about 7 glands from the butcher at the farm food shop, but this makes quite a nice starter or as part of a meal.

Handful of Fresh bread crumbs

1 egg beaten (as I was also doing the deep fried poached eggs, I used 2)

S&P

Water the sweetbreads to remove any blood,

next,gently poach them in milk, with a grating of pepper and nutmeg.

They should be firm but not hard when pressed, drain and dry on a kitchen towel.

Remove the covering membrane and any attached veins and ducts.

Place on a plate and put another plate on top, put a weight on top of this (I used a jar of Branston Pickle) and put into the fridge overnight.

Christmas morning

Remove from fridge; beat the egg(s) and season place the bread crumbs in a bowl, dip the sweetbreads in the egg and then in the bread crumbs, repeat this to get a good thick coating.

Melt some butter in a frying pan and fry these until golden brown.

Fried goose livers

Livers from the Christmas goose

Seasoned flour

Remove the outer membrane, veins and ducts from the liver, slice very thin , dust in the seasoned flour and fry very briefly at the same time and in the same pan as the sweetbreads.

Deep fried poached eggs on toasted muffin, with dry cured bacon and sauce hollandaise

2 fresh duck eggs

Bread crumbs and beaten egg (use the same ones as you use for the sweetbreads)

A pan of neutral oil or better still use a friteuse

Poach the eggs until just set (some may think me old fashioned, but I still use the vinegar and vortex method, I have heard many discuss what way to poach a perfect egg, well I think it is all a load of bunkum, just crack the egg onto a saucer, get the water with a teaspoon of vinegar in it turning at a great rate of knots and slowly allow the egg to slide slowly into the centre of the vortex, the egg white will surround the yolk perfectly, it works every time for me, but if you have another method that works for you please feel free to use it, but I shall not.

Take them out and place in iced water to stop the cooking process, leave them there until required.

When ready to put the breakfast together heat the oil in the pan, take the egg out of the water and drain on kitchen paper, next cut the egg out into a perfect circle with the aid of a cutter

and place in the beaten egg, then the seasoned bread crumbs. Now very carefully lift the egg with the aid of a slotted spoon (it is easier to place it into one of those Chinese baskets) and lower into the hot oil, as soon as the crumbs go golden brown remove and drain on kitchen paper.

Grill the bacon, put the mushroom stalks (split) with the chorizo into a frying pan and fry slowly. Remove and keep warm while you do the sweetbreads and liver.

Take the smoked salmon out of the packet and put onto the breakfast plate.

Split the muffins and toast, butter them and place a slice of bacon on top. Place your deep fried poached egg on top and then nap with freshly made sauce hollandaise ( I added thyme to mine.

Serve with the smoked salmon, the sweetbreads and goose liver, the mushrooms and venison chorizo and of course Nigel’s Portabella Mushrooms.

Tea or coffee

And of course as it’s Christmas, a glass of Spanish Cava (it would have been Champers but we didn’t get any on the ferry)