Make a Traditional Full English Breakfast

Bacon and eggs, a fry, a fry up, The Great British breakfast, a full English breakfast, a full Irish breakfast, a full Scottish breakfast, a full Welsh breakfast or an Ulster fry - all names describing one of the favourite dishes of the United Kingdom. Every home in every country of the UK has its own version; this how-to will teach you how to prepare the typical full English breakfast. The full English breakfast is a traditional meal which consists of bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms, baked beans, and sometimes tomatoes. Make this to settle your stomach the morning after; if you're trying to impress some English guests; or if you're just craving something other than oatmeal and toast. Knowing how to prepare a full English breakfast can be very as useful as well as appetizing.

Ingredients

  • 2 sausages
  • 100 grams of mushrooms
  • 2 rashers of bacon
  • 2 eggs
  • 150 grams of baked beans
  • Vegetable oil or butter for frying
  • Ketchup

Steps

  1. Cook the sausages. The sausages take the longest to cook (approximately 12 minutes), so it's best to start cooking them first. Place them in the pan with some preheated vegetable oil. Turn the sausages regularly.
  2. Cook the mushrooms. Firstly, clean the mushrooms, but do not wash them. Then slice the mushrooms and add them to a separate pan with some preheated vegetable oil. Toss and stir the mushrooms over gentle heat for 5 minutes, then put them on a warm plate.
  3. Cook the bacon. In the same pan that the sausages have been cooking in, place the rashers of bacon in to cook. Turn them every minute or so.
    • English people often cook back bacon. It's a little meatier and thicker than the streaky bacon you might see in other countries. It includes both the pork loin from the back and a bit of pork belly in each rasher.
  4. Cook the baked beans. Put the baked beans into a saucepan on the stove and stir over gentle heat.
  5. Cook the eggs. Melt a little butter in the pan, or add oil if preferred. You can also use the leftover fat from cooking the bacon, if you've cooked that ahead of time. Crack two eggs into a separate pan. Once the yolks have gone opaque, the eggs are done, thus signaling that the rest of the ingredients are cooked as well.
  6. Serve. Place all the ingredients on a large plate and enjoy!

Tips

  • To wash your food down, grab a glass of orange juice or milk, a mug of coffee or tea, or a pint of beer. While tea is the most common drink to be served with the breakfast, feel free to take whatever you like.
  • Most full English breakfasts are served with fried tomato on the side. Toast, fried mashed potatoes, black pudding, and fried red bell peppers can also be served.
  • If fresh button mushrooms aren't available, you may use tinned mushrooms, instead. If you can't get your hands on tinned mushrooms, either, try having your breakfast with two portabella mushrooms.
  • You can serve this breakfast with tomato ketchup and brown sauce. In some pubs, chutney is served alongside the breakfast; although this is definitely not traditional, you might like to have your eggs with a dollop of mango chutney on the side.
  • You can make a vegetarian version by omitting the bacon and replacing the meat sausages with vegetarian ones.
  • You can have a go at making this "healthier" by using turkey sausages and bacon. If you don't mind having scrambled eggs, replace the eggs with egg substitute.
  • The most common way to cook the eggs is to fry them; however, you may scramble or poach your eggs, instead. Not only does poaching/scrambling the eggs make you meal healthier, but it also adds a different texture to the plate.
  • Keep in mind that every family has its own idea of what a full breakfast is.
    • For a full Irish breakfast, serve with soda bread, potato bread, pancakes, and liver. You might also like to serve white pudding or black pudding on the side.
    • For an Ulster fry, which is not always confined to being eaten at breakfast time, the ingredients are sausages, bacon, eggs and three types of fried farls - soda, potato and wheaten. Optional extras are mushrooms or beans and either brown sauce (ie. HP) or tomato ketchup. Although it's called a fry, these days the ingredients are often grilled instead of being fried in oil or fat.
    • For a full Scottish breakfast, serve with fruit pudding, black pudding, white pudding, oatcakes, haggis, and potato bread.

Warnings

  • Make sure everything is cooked through before serving. Food poisoning is the last thing you need.
  • Be very careful around a hot stove.

Things You'll Need

  • A knife
  • A chopping board
  • A wooden stirring spoon
  • A spatula
  • A small saucepan
  • 2 frying pans

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  • VideoJug - the original source of this article. Shared with permission.
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