Читать книгу A Girl and Her Pig - April Bloomfield - Страница 18

SQUASH AND PANCETTA TOAST S WITH FRIED EGGS

Right before the Pig opened, I was working eighteen hours a day with my sous-chef and a line cook, trying to get everything ready. For a week, we operated on four hours of sleep a night and practically nothing to eat. We were so busy we didn’t notice. This is what I cooked for our first real meal, which I guess you’d call breakfast. There’s sweetness from the squash, heat from the chilli, sweet-and-salty from the pancetta, and creamy relief from the egg. I like to scoop a big hunk of squash, pop it onto the toast, and smoosh it down, leaving some smooth and some with a little texture.

serves 4

2 medium garlic cloves, smashed and peeled

2 heaped tablespoons marjoram leaves

4 teaspoons coriander seeds, toasted and ground

(see Spices, here)

100ml plus 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Maldon or another flaky sea salt

8 or so dried pequin chillies or pinches of red pepper flakes

One 675g butternut squash, halved lengthwise and seeds scooped out

8 thin slices pancetta

4 large eggs

4 Bruschetta (see Toast and Bruschetta, here)

Preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F/gas 8.

Chop the garlic with the marjoram until you have a very fine, well-blended mixture. Combine this mixture with the ground coriander, 100ml of the olive oil, and 1 tablespoon salt in a large mixing bowl. Crumble in 5 of the chillies and stir well.

Put the squash, one half at a time, into the bowl and use your hands to coat it all over with the oil and seasonings. Put the halves cut sides up in a baking dish and drizzle them with any oil left in the bowl. Pour 100ml water around the squash, cover the dish tightly with two layers of foil, and pop it into the oven. Roast the squash until you can slide a knife into the thickest part of the flesh without resistance, about 45 minutes. Remove the foil, flip the squash halves so the cut sides face down, and roast for about 10 minutes more, until the cut sides are just a bit brown. Set the dish aside in a warm place.

Pour the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil into a medium non-stick pan and set it over high heat. Once the oil begins to smoke, add 4 slices of the pancetta. Once they shrink up, add the rest. Cook the pancetta, stirring it a bit, until it’s brown at the edges but still floppy, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to kitchen paper to drain, and reserve the fat in a bowl.

Scoop out the squash with a spoon and spread a good bit of it on each bruschetta.

Pour some of the pancetta fat (a generous tablespoon per egg) back into the pan (fry the eggs in two batches if you must) and set it over medium-high heat. When the fat is barely smoking, crack the eggs into the pan. You should hear spitting and sizzling when you add them. That means the whites will get crispy on the edges. When the whites begin to set, sprinkle the eggs with a little salt and as much crushed chilli as you’d like. Cook the eggs as you prefer – I like mine over easy for this recipe, with runny yolks.

Top each bruschetta with an egg and then 2 slices of the pancetta. Serve straight away.