Читать книгу Spooning with Rosie - Rosie Lovell - Страница 21

Colombian Scrambled Eggs with Frills

For 2

There’s a great bona fide Colombian restaurant in Brixton market called Como y Punto, and they do an epic breakfast. Their proud kitchen is reassuringly evident from the café, and little pots of salsa sit at every table for you to help yourself to. The last time I ate there, we entirely demolished the salsa, because it’s so jolly delicious.

Luckily there are wonderful shops in Brixton where you can buy and even see corn bread being made. Though in case you haven’t any Central or South American shops near you, I’ve added a cornmeal pancake recipe too, from Raf’s mum, Maggie, and her epic cookery book collection. This colourful and tangy breakfast is all about finely chopping everything. It is best with milky Colombian-style coffees.

The Salsa

1 big juicy tomato

a few stalks of fresh coriander

1 spring onion

1 big red chilli

2 teaspoons white sugar

3 dessertspoons white wine vinegar

¹/₂ teaspoon table salt

First prepare the salsa by seriously chopping the tomato, coriander, spring onion and chilli finely with a large sharp knife. For best effects, you want to get a swinging rhythm going by holding down the pointed end of the knife and chopping all over the vegetables. However, if you have a little hand-held blender it would be helpful here to make this a thin and fine salsa. Then add the sugar, vinegar and salt. Decant this into a ramekin for the table.

The Corn Cakes

100g coarse or medium cornmea

40g plain white flour

¹/₂ teaspoon salt

¹/₂ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 large free-range egg

200ml soured milk (soured by squeezing ¹/₂ lemon into the milk, and leaving to rest for 5 minutes)

4 teaspoons vegetable oil

Measure out the cornmeal, flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda, and thoroughly mix together. Then beat together the egg and soured milk, and gradually whisk this into the dry ingredients. It should be a sloppy cake-mixture type of batter. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a medium frying pan on a high heat to bring the heat of the pan right up. When the oil is rippling and ready, turn the heat right down to low and wait a moment before pouring in enough batter to form a 12cm round. Fry for a few minutes, so that the edges are quite brown and crinkled and the surface is smattered with rising bubbles and is nearly dry. Release the cake around the edges with a palette knife or flat frying flipper, and turn it over. You will only need to fry the second side for a moment, to seal it. The cake should be speckled brown and a little risen if fried correctly.

Remove from the pan to a kitchen towel, to absorb any excess oil. Repeat this process with another teaspoon of oil until all the batter is gone.

The Eggs

1 green chilli

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 small onion

1 small fresh tomato

4 large free-range eggs

a pinch of table salt

Remove the seeds from the chilli and finely chop so that it is almost shredded. Heat the oil on a medium heat in a big frying pan. When it is rippling, add the fine pieces of chilli. While they’re sizzling, peel and dice the onion really small and add to the pan. Deseed the tomato, and again finely chop this before adding to the pan. Leave to sweat for a minute. Then crack the eggs into the frying pan. With a heatproof spatula, break the yolks and stir everything together, but so that the white and yolk colours are still quite defined. Turn the heat down and continue to fold the eggs over with the spatula. When they are quite firm and integrated with the vegetables, remove everything from the pan and lay it out on two plates with the corn cakes. Heap the salsa on top, and season with table salt if necessary.