Food You Can Eat: Full Irish Breakfast

Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Erin go Braaaaaaaaagh! By the time you read this you will no doubt have had some kind of breakfast and have spent the day wearing an article or more of green clothing because, supposedly, we are all a little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Even my dog will be joining in (I’m prewriting this) because every year we buy him little rubber booties to protect his paws from the winter oversalting/over-chemical-ing of the sidewalks and roadways, and this year’s color is an iridescent green. I may give him a little sausage because he is a very good boy. 

I cribbed this recipe from God knows where but I’ll present it as is, because it makes the same Irish breakfast I’ve had many times, and without fail this is what goes into it. I’ve added footnotes.

Ingredients (serves 4)

8 Sausages [1]

4 Hash Browns [2]

8 slices Black Pudding [3]

Butter or Oil

8 Bacon Slices [4]

8 Mushrooms, cleaned and quartered

1 Large Tomato, quartered

4 Eggs

1 can Baked Beans (14 ounces)

Instructions 

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Place the sausages, hash browns and black pudding slices onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment (for easy clean up) and bake them until ready. The time will vary depending on the ingredients you use so keep an eye on them. You might need to take out some of them earlier.

About 10 minutes into baking, turn the sausages, hash browns and black pudding around for even cooking. Heat a little butter/oil in a large skillet/frying pan and fry bacon slices until cooked through. When ready, wrap them in a sheet of aluminum foil to keep them warm.

In the same skillet/frying pan, fry the mushrooms and tomato (add more oil/butter, if needed). When ready, wrap them in the aluminum foil.

Check the items in the oven – some of them may be already done. If yes, take them out.

Clean the skillet with paper kitchen towel and add little oil butter. When hot, crack the eggs in and fry [5] on low/medium heat until they look to your liking. Using a lid will speed up the cooking process.

Finally, heat up the beans (either in a microwave or in a skillet/frying pan).

When ready, serve all the ingredients either on a baking tray, in a frying pan or plated individually.

Best served Serve warm/hot!

[1] The sausages should be plump and spicy for a real approximation of Irish sausages. If you use breakfast sausages, you might want to serve more than two per person. The purpose of the Full Irish Breakfast is not to count calories nor is it to follow the advice of a reputable cardiologist.

[2] You can make a batch of hash browns and proportion them, but this recipe uses frozen hash brown patties, like you get at fast food places and chain diners like Denny’s, you know, like the one on La Cienaga near LAX because SOMEONE insists on taking flights out of LA that leave at dawn so he can be back in New York by early afternoon.

[3] Black pudding is a mystery element, like Marmite or strontium. It’s a blood sausage, so get that if you can. A common, close relative is chorizo. Americans don’t eat nearly as much blood sausage as our counterparts across the Atlantic.

[4] This is the bigger, thicker bacon that they have in Europe. In Britain and Ireland these are known as rashers, or sometimes streaky (fatty) rashers. Use that if you can, but if not supermarket bacon will do, just serve more slices per person. See note above above ignoring cardiologist advice.

[5] For some reason, the Full Irish Breakfast almost always comes with a fried egg, and you normally wouldn’t get the question, “And how would you like your egg?” So don’t scramble or hard boil the egg, fry it. If your breakfast guests don’t like fried eggs, tell them to go to another teach tábhairne (pub, in Irish).

And finally, speaking of pubs and breakfasts, you could accompany something like this with beer, like a Guiness stout, but that would be too much, even for this carb-loving glutton. Serve with sparkling water, Irish breakfast tea, and/or mimosas/Bloody Marys.

With that, let’s conclude with the traditional Irish blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of His hand.