Breakfast

Is so important to me. Living the US made me just so happy, because they take breakfast almost as seriously as we do down south. There are pancakes, and waffles, and eggs, and toast, and lordy lordy, home fries! Never been so happy in my life. Whenever I have the time, I like to make sure I have a nice cooked breakfast, otherwise i make do with cereal or porridge or something. This morning, I managed to have a cheese omelet, home fries and a slice of my oat bread.

Now there are tons of recipes for home fries, and everyone has their favourites. I remember one place in Berkeley that puts SOUR CREAM and green onions on their home fries. The horror. Me, I like em Burger Heaven style, with green peppers, caramelised onions and a titch of paprika. Or like EJ's, in big chunks, with the skins on and loads of paprika. Today's was a super simple recipe, that took about 20 minutes to make.

Eggs are also deeply subjective, I hate mine runny, and have never willingly eaten a sunny side up fried egg. I usually like them scrambled, but nice and creamy, with only cheese and salt - egg bhurji is for other meals. Omelets are I like with minimum additives, especially not tomatoes or green chillies!



For the omelet:

• 2 eggs
• about 1 cube grated cheese (say 2 tbs. Of course you can vary this to get as much as you like, but I find too much cheese keeps the egg from coming together. I'd advocate lots of cheese in scrambled eggs)
• salt and any other spices to taste (oregano, chilli flakes, ground black pepper)
• Finely minced fresh coriander (optional)
• Half a small onion, finely diced (optional)

For the home fries:

• 1 medium potato, scrubbed clean and diced small
• 1/2 small onion, diced fine
• salt to taste
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 pinch paprika (I don't like it smoked, and that's all I have in the house right now so I skipped it)

Making the omelet:

If you're using the onions, cook them in 1 tsp of butter till they caramelize, or whatever way you like them. Beat eggs till they become nicely homogeneous. Add onions, coriander, salt, spices and cheese and beat with a fork to make sure it's evenly distributed. Pour into hot pan. (I use a nonstick and about 1/2 tsp of oil. If i've made the onions then I just cook it in the leftover butter.) Turn heat down as low as it can get and wait for the egg to puff a bit at the edges. You'll see the cheese has melted and the liquidy bit becomes very sluggish. Turn over carefully with spatula. Once the egg puffs up again, it's good to go.

Making the home fries:

Heat 1 tsp of oil in a skillet and fry the onions till translucent. Add potatoes, salt, paprika and toss nicely to mix. Cover and allow to cook for about 15-20 minutes. The smaller the cubes the faster they'll cook. Check in on them and toss every so often. Once a fork goes in easily, they're done. Take off the fire and leave covered for a few minutes to let them finish cooking in the steam.

Alternative: Add half a finely minced green pepper when you fry the onions.