Omelette and Chips (the awesome way)

HELLO INTERNET! 

If you're a fellow student (especially if you're a lucky third year like we are) you'll know that it's been a very busy month, and so hopefully you'll excuse our dismal lack of posting. If you're not a student, I ask that you just trust me because everything is insane.

Last week I was on the phone to Mum, and said I didn't know what to make for tea because I didn't have much in. She suggested I made omelette and chips, and gave me the recipe below (or a version of it, because I can never leave a recipe alone...). 

It. Was. Amazing.

 

Ingredients (serves 1):
- knob of butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 small onion
- sprinkle dried thyme
- handful fresh parsley, chopped
- salt and pepper, to taste
- small handful grated cheddar cheese

For the chips:
- a few medium size potatoes (depends how many chips you want!)
- olive oil
- salt and pepper

For the omelette, onion is my preference (and also all I had in), but you could use a red onion, or try some mushrooms instead. Go wild.

1. Start by doing the chips. If you can't be bothered/have no potatoes/are going to use frozen oven chips, skip straight to step 3; otherwise, heat your oven to 200°C and peel your potatoes. Cut them into chip shapes.
2. Put the potatoes into a pan of salted water, then bring to the boil. Once bubbling, cook for 5 minutes, then drain and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and crack over some salt and pepper, stir to coat then pop in the oven for 45-50 minutes (turning them half way through). Voila.

3. After your chips have had 30 minutes or so in the oven, make a start on the omelette. You need to cook the onion first, so slice it thinly, then whack it in a small frying pan with the thyme and some olive oil. Cook for about 5 minutes, until softened and starting to colour.
4. Meanwhile, break the eggs into a bowl and beat (not excessively, just to mix). Add the salt, pepper, the fresh parsley and the cooked onion and stir everything in.
5. In the frying pan you cooked the onion in, add the butter and melt it. The pan should be fairly hot when adding the omelette (have it on a medium heat), so it's important that you get it up to heat. Pour in the omelette mixture, and stir gently with a wooden spoon, making gentle cutting motions across the pan. You only need to do this a couple of times - it just helps ensure the egg is cooked through.
6. When the mixture is beginning to brown on the bottom and beginning to set on top, sprinkle over the cheese and fold in half. Continue to cook for another few minutes, or until the cheese has melted.

7. Serve! For me, chips like these are always best with liberal amounts of salt and vinegar, but obviously you can do what you like. This is so much healthier than many other recipes, especially the chips, though I promise you it doesn't suffer for it! Try it and see for yourself.

Kaiserschmarrn: Guest Post by Liesl Rowe

Hello! I'm Liesl Rowe, a uni friend of Fraser's, hence how I know Bryony. As you've possibly guessed from my name, I'm a quarter-Austrian (although my parents are 'Sound of Music' fans too, before you ask). As a result, I've grown up making various traditional Austrian dishes from our family recipe book with the best definitely being Kaiserschmarrn. 

Photography by Zosia Edwards

  Literally translated as 'The Emperor's pieces', Kaiserschmarrn apparently came into being after the German Kaiser's chef dropped the pancakes which he was preparing for the Kaiser on the floor and had to quickly make them into something presentable. Makes me feel a whole lot better about my baking disasters...

Technically it's meant to be an Austrian dessert but a few years ago I realised that it would make an awesome breakfast dish as it's basically chopped up pancakes with sultanas. It's one of my favourite things to cook for friends as it sounds really impressive but involves minimal effort.

Ingredients (serves 4):
- 75g/3oz plain flour
- 40g/1½oz caster sugar
- 25g/1oz butter, melted
- 200ml milk
- 3 eggs, separated

Method:
1. Put the flour and sugar in a basin. Form a 'well' in the middle of the bowl and slowly add the melted butter, milk and eggs yolks.
2. Beat the egg whites until they resemble stiff peaks, then add along with the sultanas.
3. Pour into a well-buttered frying pan and allow to partially set. Flip the mixture and brown both sides, then tear into pieces. Allow these to continue cooking very gently. When the pieces have finished cooking, both sides should look golden.
4. Serve with oodles of raspberry jam and enjoy!

Pancakes are for life, not just for Tuesdays

Or Shrove Tuesday, specifically. I adore pancakes. I've been the resident pancake-maker at home since I can remember, and they're so fun and easy to make that there's really no excuse not to. Last summer I went to France, and the fantastic crêpes there only increased my love. 

 

There are a million ways you can eat your pancakes, but the basic batter recipe's a simple one, and not at all expensive to make.

Ingredients (makes approx 12):

- 115g/4oz plain flour

- 2 eggs

- 300ml milk

- 2tbsp melted butter

You can use gluten-free flour. I did last week cos that's basically all we have in the house, and I suggest if you do that you add an extra 50ml of milk cos the batter'll be thicker.

1. Put the flour in a bowl. Add the eggs and some of the milk, and whisk in the flour a little at a time.
2. Gradually pour in the remaining milk, whisking until the ingredients are well mixed in.
3. Add the melted butter and whisk again.
4. Brush the frying pan with a little more butter, and heat the pan until it sizzles. If the pan isn't hot enough your first pancake will fall to bits, and I take it upon myself to prove the 'first pancake will fail' rule wrong as often as possible.

5. Pour in approx 2tbsp of batter, and cook for about a minute - until the edges are curling and the batter is bubbling - then flip. Despite my love of pancake-making I had honestly never flipped a pancake before last week. So thank you, Jamie, for teaching me the art! 

As for the filling, it's really just whatever you fancy. My sister's favourite is maple syrup. Mine's good old lemon and sugar. In summer I re-created a spiced, caramelised apple concoction we'd had in France, which we ate with raspberries and yoghurt:

Grab two apples (peeled, cored and sliced), 3tbsp caster sugar, 1tsp of cinnamon and 50g butter and put them in a pan. Whap on a gentle heat for about 10 mins until it's all golden and sitcky.

 

 

Hangover Heaven: Eggy Bread

I handed in my last essay of term on Tuesday, and I feel more than due a good night out in celebration. Luckily there are two of those lined up for this week, but not-so-luckily they're one after the other. Plus, Fraser's coming to visit and will be here for the second one, so I need to be alive rather than wallowing in the hangover hell.

Solution: Eggy bread (or French toast, if you want to be fancy). And also tea. Lots of tea.

It couldn't be simpler really -
1. Heat up some olive oil in a frying pan. You can add some butter too, if you're feeling extravagant.
2. Grab some bread, it doesn't matter what sort, and slice it up.
3. Then in a bowl, beat together an egg per person, add a good dash of milk and season.
4. Soak your bread in the eggy mixture (flipping over so both sides get done), then transfer to the pan.
5. Cook for about 3-5 minutes and then turn over and cook for a few more. Both sides should be gorgeously dark gold and crunchy-looking.
6. When it's done, transfer to some kitchen towel and whap your next lot in the pan.

If you run out of mixture, just top it up with another egg and some more milk. Easy peasy.

Serve with ketchup, or, for an alternative, you could skip the peppering stage of making the mix, then once the bread's cooked serve it with a sprinkle of caster sugar and cinnamon. That one would go well with fruit, too.

And don't forget the tea.

Frying eggs in two directions

I only learnt how to fry eggs this year.

(The first time I typed that it came out as fly. That would be far more exciting.) 

But they make an excellent breakfast lunch or dinner food. And talking to a few people, I found out I wasn't the only one who got a bit baffled by eggs. So hopefully, this will be the first of a few simple ways to cook eggs.

Here's the basic method...

Two eggs.

One tablespoon of olive oil.

1. Heat up the oil in a pan. 

2. Crack the first egg. (Someone told me once that you gotta put a hole in the egg shell before you bin it. Otherwise witches will use them as boats. Of course, I'll leave you to make up your own mind, but those pesky witches can get anywhere.)

3. Tip the egg into the pan. When it has set a bit, repeat with egg number two.

4. Let the eggs cook for about two minutes. If the oil starts to spit, turn the heat down.

5. Occasionally spoon some of the oil over the tops of the eggs as they're cooking to help them set. 

6. When the yolks are still wobbly but the rest of the egg is solid, scoop them out of the pan with a slotted spatula-ey thing. 

7. Voila. Fried eggs.

Now to serve... Here's the simple way:

Salt, pepper and buttered toast.

And the fancy way:

Salt, pepper and buttered toast yet again, except this time, spread the toast with goat's cheese and sprinkle with fresh herbs - I used thyme but you can use whatever you fancy.