Category Archives: breakfast

Tortilla de Habas con Menta

20 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by in breakfast, Main Courses, Starters, Vegetable Dishes

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Broad bean spanish omlette with mint.

The Spanish tortilla made with potatoes is universally known, but tortillas are also regularly made with other vegetables, peas, green garlics, peppers and beans, as in this case. Really any flavoursome vegetable that is not to wet to hold the cake shape can make a tortilla, or a combination of vegetables of course.

The fresh broad beans from my huerta or vegetable garden are sweet and tender, perfect for this dish.

For 2 portions

220 grams broad beans

3 eggs

1 -2 tablespoons of olive oil

small bunch of mint – finely chopped

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Blanch the beans by pouring boiling water over them and leaving them to steep for five minutes. Drain.

Break the eggs into a bowl and beat lightly to mix.

Add the beans and mint. Season well with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a small non stick pan. When hot add the egg mix, turn the heat low and cover.

After about five minutes of cooking check how the omlette is cooking. With a spatula pull the egg slightly away from the sides and towards the middle.

Cover again and leave to cook for a few more minutes.

Once you can see that the tortilla is cooked at the edge, but not quite cooked through in the middle, its time to turn it over.

With a spatula make sure that the tortilla is loose from the pan. Put a plate over the pan and in one quick movement invert the pan over the plate.

Return the pan to the heat and add the other spoon of oil, slide the tortilla back into the pan to cook the second side. This will only take three to four minutes.

Turn the tortilla onto a plate and enjoy with a fresh salad….or two.

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Patatas a lo Pobre – Poor Mans Potatoes – with Broken Eggs – con Huevos Rotos

17 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by in breakfast, Food for One, Main Courses, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes

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This is a very common dish down here in Andalucia, especially at this time of year when, in the old days, the ingredients for it were pretty well all that was in the larder. Potatoes, good olive oil, onions, garlic and green peppers. It can then be fortified with whatever you have, chorizo, fresh sausages, a slice of pork, or my favourite, eggs, or if you are really hungry, all of those.
All sorts of other ingredients can be added to this basic recipe to vary it. Mushrooms work well, red peppers of course, olives for a different flavour.
Per person you want

150 grams more or less of waxy potatoes – scrubbed and cut into thickish slices

1/4 of a large onion – cut into slices

2 cloves of garlic – cut into thin slices

1 green horn shaped pepper – cut into bite sized pieces

extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

one or two free range eggs

Traditionally the potatoes are fried with the rest of the ingredients from raw, but as you have to use a generous amount of olive oil to ensure that they don’t stick in the pan, I prefer to par boil them for five to seven minutes until half cooked, then I drain them and put them to one side while I cook the rest of the ingredients. You can do this or go the traditional method, the choice is yours.

Put two tablespoons of oil into a shallow pan, add the onions, garlic and green peppers. Fry on a low heat stirring regularly, until lightly browned at the edges.

Add the potatoes and continue frying and stirring, adding more oil if you think you need to.

Season well, and continue cooking until the potatoes are cooked.

Either poach or fry the eggs.

Serve the potatoes with the eggs on top cutting into the eggs so that the lovely warm yellow yolks dribble into them.

Enjoy!




Spicy Omelette Breakfast Wrap

10 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by in breakfast, Food for One

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This recipe’s origins lay with one of the supermarkets local to here being taken over by South American’s, who know a good flour tortilla and stock the best ones you can buy around here. I have made my own, but these are better than I can do, so why bother. Burritos are the first recipe I made with the tortillas, and I’ve used them as Chapatis with Indian dishes, but one morning fancying a change from my poached egg on toast I made a thin omelette with spices in it, drizzled it with a spicy chilli sauce and rolled it in a hot tortilla. Fab!

Since then I’ve made different variations depending on what vegetables or sauces I’ve had. I’ve added mange toute peas, sweet garden peas, blanched broccoli, sweetcorn or peppers and I’ve put a spread of hummus or aubergine pate on the tortilla before the omelette. The recipe below is for the plain spiced omelette, which is lovely and tasty as it is, or you might want to add vegetables for a more robust omelette.

For a dinner plate sized tortilla you want –

1 free range egg

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon garam masala

1 tablespoon water / vegetable stock / milk

pinch salt

freshly ground black pepper

fresh coriander roughly chopped

olive oil for frying

Mix all the ingredients together.

Heat the oil in a small frying pan, add the egg mix and cover. Cook slowly until just set.

Turn the omelette onto a warmed tortilla, drizzle with a hot chilli sauce of your choice, roll and enjoy!

Banana, Coconut & Cardamom Buns

01 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by in breakfast, Sweet Things, Vegan

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These slightly sweet breakfast buns were inspired by an article on what to do with bananas that had got too soft. In the piece one of the cooks suggested making banana and cardamom puris. I just love anything flavoured with cardamoms and the idea of mixing the spice with bananas was very appealing.
Puris are made from a rich yeast dough, which of course can be baked as well as fried. I replaced the butter and milk in the puri recipe with coconut cream, some slivers of fresh coconut would add to this flavour, but I thought of that after I had made the buns. I was forgetting that I have some coconut flesh in the freezer, so next time…

250 grams whole meal spelt flour

7 grams fresh yeast / 3.5 grams powdered yeast

6 green cardamom pods

2 medium sized ripe bananas

120 ml coconut cream

2 teaspoons soft brown sugar

Egg white and more sugar for a topping

 

Put the flour into a large mixing bowl.

Add the seeds from the cardamom pods, the sugar and the yeast. Mix well.

Peel and either mash or pulse the bananas in a food processor. You don’t want a purée but some texture remaining.

Add the coconut cream to the bananas and mix.

Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and pour in the banana and coconut cream. Mix in to form a sticky dough.

Cover the bowl with a clean tea cloth and leave in a warm drought free place for a couple of hours until it has doubled in size.

Flour your work surface and tip the dough onto it. Knead the dough for a few minutes then divide into 8 equal balls.

Place on a baking tray and again in a warm drought free place leave to prove for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 175 C and bake the buns for 10 minutes.

Turn the oven down to 150 C and bake for another 5 minutes.

Take the tray out of the oven and brush each bun with egg white then sprinkle on a little brown sugar. Put the buns back in the oven for 7-10 minutes until the tops are nicely browned.