Posts Tagged ‘Ham’

Croque Madame

Saturday, October 9th, 2010

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While we were in France recently, we had a couple of croques, both monsieur and madame, and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that there are few other things I’d rather have as a light lunch. I know you can’t really go wrong with whats essentially posh cheese on toast, but when you add an egg, something good becomes something special.

There are different shapes, sizes and methods, but the common ground is in the cheese which is usually either Emmental or Gruyère (a combination of the two might be rather good), and I prefer the sourdough bread version as opposed the the white processed one.

It’s not rocket science, but there are a couple of touches and flourishes to make your croque extra tasty, so lets crack on.

Ingredients (per serving)

1 large slice of good sourdough bread, sliced about half an inch thick

A handful of grated emmental cheese

2 slices of good quality smoked ham

Dijon mustard

1 egg

Salt & pepper to taste

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Happy Pancake Day

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Photo by Cafe Darclee

Photo by Cafe Darclee

It’s Shrove Tuesday aka Pancake day. Traditionally a time to get rid of sugar, fat and eggs before fasting for Lent, it’s now a bit of a treat in the culinary calendar.

Pancakes are ridiculously easy and quick to prepare, and once you’ve got them made, you can stick pretty much anything you fancy in them.

This recipe employs the five 1s formula.

Ingredients

1 egg, preferably free-range or organic

1 cup of self-raising flour

1 cup of milk

1 pinch of salt

1 nob of butter (melted, around 20g)

Method

Whisk together the egg, flour and milk in a bowl, melt the butter in a pan and then beat into the mix removing any lumps.

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Breakfast Pizza

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

During the Summer holidays of my second year at university I went backpacking with my mate Ed around Egypt, Jordan and Israel. One of the most vivid memories I have from that trip was when we were staying in Islamic Jerusalem. We were sleeping on the roof of a pretty grotty hostel, but every morning we’d look forward to going to this local bakery for breakfast. This place wasn’t a cafe, but a proper working bakery. As well as supplying bread to local restaurants and shops, they guy who owned it was also kind of famous for his ‘breakfast pizzas’.

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They were made on dough base that was smeared with tomato puree, then topped with a triangle of Dairylea style processed cheese, and an egg. They were then baked in a bread oven until the egg was cooked all the way through. Like the hostel, the pizzas were pretty basic, but I remember them being very tasty, and after we’d been there a couple of times, the guy let us make our own and put them in the oven.

This breakfast pizza is a more sophisticated version of the above, and uses some of the same basic ingredients as the pizza recipe featured in this earlier post.

Ingredients (per pizza)

Around 200g pizza dough

Tomato sauce

2 cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced

Teleggio cheese

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