Buttery Scrambled Eggs, Herby Tomatoes and 'Nduja Toast
What's on the menu for Christmas Day breakfast this year? Croissants? Smoked salmon? Harveys Bristol Cream?! So far, so standard. This year how about jumping on the 'nduja bandwagon and spreading its spicy, porky goodness over some toast to have with richly scrambled eggs and roasted tomatoes...
'Nduja is taking the capital by storm. I wrote about it a bit on my travels to Rimini, and it is fair to say now that it is becoming pretty widespread on menus around town and has definitely displaced chorizo as the spicy cured sausage of choice. What is 'nduja? It's an Italian delicacy of hotly spiced spreadable pork sausage; much more pliable than its chorizo cousin, it lends itself well to smearing over hot buttered toast or used as a base for sauces. I got mine at the recent Foodies Festival from some nice young chaps who are lovingly curing free range meats in North London, but I hear it's also widely available in Waitrose.
For this (incredibly simple) recipe you will need:
Melt a sizeable knob of butter in a saucepan. Use one whole egg and one extra yolk per person - this makes the scrambled egg so much richer and yellower, and is nice for a Christmas Day treat. Whisk them briskly in the pan and then have it over a high heat for a matter of minutes. Mine only took about 90 seconds before beginning to solidify and I don't know about you but for me there's nothing worse than overdone scrambled egg, so take them off the heat way way way before you think they're done. They will continue to cook in the pan.
Pierce each tomato once and then pop them in a pan with a little splash of olive oil. Once they begin to colour throw in a handful of fresh Mediterranean herbs. Most will do. I used parsley and coriander but basil, chives or even tarragon would be nice with this. Stir the herbs around so they coat the tomatoes but don't let them cook enough to take away their wonderful green freshness.
Finally toast the bread to your liking, butter lightly and spread a generous helping of 'nduja on top.
Here's the 'nduja toast close up. The smokey, sweetly spicy flavour is perfect to offset the eggs:
The only hard bit of this breakfast is trying not to eat too much as you need to save room for your Christmas lunch! Let me know if you try it.