Toast on Eggs!

~  Sudden Lunch Menu  ~

Toast on Eggs

Charred Asparagus

Glass of my Secret Red Wine

I love preparing eggs this way; it makes such a change from eggs on toast!  Seriously it is a different way of getting crunch into my meals (something I insist on) when I only have untoastworthy scraps of bread. 

I also love asparagus and usually prefer to roast rather than steam it for a more intense flavour.  The other day, however, I saw Jamie Oliver char some in a ridge pan and thought if it’s good enough for him its good enough for me.  It was a delicious combination - I knew it would be.  

Years ago, when my sister and I had a restaurant, The House on the Strand, at Trebarwith in Cornwall, we used to buy a lot of asparagus in June under the pretense that we were going to sell it but instead we usually ate the lot ourselves, dipped into soft boiled eggs.  We’ve always been bad. 

This is how my lunch looked just after I’d made it …

… and this is how it looked just after I started eating it, you’ll see that at this stage that I used up the leftover crusts too.

This doesn’t really warrant a recipe but here goes …

Toast on Eggs ~ per person

15-20ml olive oil (or bacon fat if you are running low on cholesterol) plus a little extra

a handful of soft breadcrumbs – approx 1 standard slice of bread, crumbled

salt and pepper and any other seasoning you fancy 

2 eggs

~   Drizzle the olive oil over the breadcrumbs and stir to moisten.

~   Season to taste.

~   Dry fry the crumbs in a hot pan (i.e. no need for any more oil) stirring them about till they are crisp and golden.

~   Set aside, wipe out the pan and use it to fry a couple of eggs in a little oil.  

~   Sprinkle over the crumbs and serve.

I cooked the asparagus in a dry ridge pan for a few minutes per side till starting to go brown in places, then added a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of Cornish sea salt and tossed it around a bit.  I think Jamie Oliver added lemon juice but I didn’t fancy it with the eggs. (Actually I think I'll go back to roasting!)

Whilst I was serving the asparagus I dropped a piece on the floor and this, grumpy old woman that I am, made me think “tsk – young people today”. When I was younger we used to have a 5 Second Rule which meant that if a bit of food was only on the floor for 5 seconds you could still use it.  These days it is called the 6 Second Rule – lazy or what?

Pangrattato!

Incidentally these crunchy cooked breadcrumbs are known as pangrattato and are a great way of improving almost any meal.  

See here for more on Pangrattato

and

See here for 7(+) more Interesting Ideas for Leftover Bread