Serves 4
Ingredients
- 12 rashers organic short-cut bacon, rind removed
- 8 free-range or organic eggs
- Sea salt and white pepper, to season
- 4 slices wood-fired bread, toasted, to serve
- Bitton Spicy Tomato Sauce or your favourite
- tomato relish, to serve
Method
This was one of the first dishes I tackled when I started my apprenticeship on 5 September 1984 in a Paris bistro and café that also had guest rooms upstairs. I was 15, had just left home and was faced with cleaning garbage bins, sweeping the hotel car park and working in the cold larder in the cold and wet weather. I worked seven days in the kitchen and my apprenticeship was also a lesson in life in the real world.
Place a small frying pan over a medium high heat and add three rashers of bacon. Cook the bacon until the fat is released into the pan and the bacon starts to become crispy. The idea of this dish is to cook the eggs in the bacon fat. Season with salt and white pepper. Break two eggs into the pan and cook to your liking. If you prefer the yolks to be well cooked, finish off the eggs under a hot grill. Slide this onto a toasted slice of wood-fired bread and keep warm.
Repeat the above steps with the rest of the bacon and eggs. Finish off the dish with some Bitton Spicy Tomato Sauce or your favourite tomato relish.
Note: For a vegetarian option or an added treat, you can sauté 100 g button mushrooms in butter with a teaspoon of finely chopped garlic and parsley. Cook until soft and the liquid released from the mushrooms is reduced by half.
