English breakfast 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (flag edited by MNHQ)

[Wishitwouldsnowsomuch]

I live abroad and make an English breakfast about twice a year 😂
I have fond memories of being a child and coming downstairs to the smell of bacon and cracking of eggs.
I fancy doing one this Sunday, what are the ideal things to have?
We had the full things as kids (no beans though! 🤮) but we had fried bread etc, I’ll likely just do toast, but it will be white and it will be Warburtons. Love mushrooms too, tomatoes I’m not sure as I’d do normal, proper tomatoes fried, but we had plum tomatoes as a kid? Which is best?

Has to have..
Bacon
Egg
Sausage
Fried slice
Mushrooms
Tomato
Black or white pudding
Left over mashed potato, fried.
Toast
Beans. The beans must be fried in the bacon fat. This is a legal requirement.
All the above must be fried in lard. This is also a legal requirement.

• Disclaimer. If it's not a legal requirement, then it should be!

For a great cooked breakfast I'd have have bacon, eggs (fried, poached or scrambled depending on mood), best quality sausage, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, black pudding, soda bread and/or potato scones. All with plenty of tea and fresh orange juice. Toast and Seville orange marmalade with a coffee to follow. Don't like white pudding or square sausage. I'd happily have baked beans and/or hash browns in a hotel, but wouldn't make them myself. And then a very long walk!

Love avocado on toast, but that would be for another day.

My ideal fry up is:
• a lot of fried bread
• Grilled (fresh) tomatoes
• Bacon, even though I don't like back as much as streaky
• One sausage if it's really, really nice. Otherwise none.
• Just one fried egg, they make me feel a bit sick
• Hash brown or soda bread, or both
• sneaky piece of grilled halloumi, just in case the salt level wasn't high enough!

I read a book called Red Sauce, Brown Sauce where Felicity cycles about trying fry ups. She wrote an 'official' list of items for a fry-up, but ended up eating quite varied ones and has inspired me to try mustard instead of brown sauce.

How to fry bread:

1. Fry the bread
2. Eat the fried bread.

Flaming for the black and white pudding tbh

Oh yes, I'd be on board with garlic mushrooms, definitely! 👍

Bacon
Fried egg
Sausage
Grilled tomato optional
hash brown ideally 2
White buttered toast
Orange juice

absolutely no baked beans

I agree, it should be that simple, but mine always comes out part burnt part raw! Is there too much oil? Not enough oil? Not hot enough? Wrong sort of bread? The quest continues!

Pointing out that the UK flag isn't the English flag isn't 'putting a downer on things' though.

Ahh they tell you to Toast them in the toaster now!

It's quite important though I'm afraid.

I'm wondering if any countries on the main continent of Europe have a fried breakfast? I'm always surprised by the "continental" breakfast in British hotels being pastries and fruit.

Animal based fat (fat left over from cooking the rest) and slightly stale white bread always worked for me.
If you're vegetarian then you might have to play about with getting the oil temp right.

Well us Scots certainly have a reputation for frying everything, or at least we did, and that's possibly true of the rest of the UK too. I rarely eat a fry up these days but do like a Continental Style breakfast every so often. I find them easier to digest, although there can be a fair bit of fat in those two with the meats, cheeses, croissants (sometimes) etc.

Yes, that's bugging me too

That would be a Scottish cooked breakfast. English breakfasts have link sausages and fried bread rather than tattie scone.

Agreed.
It's also maybe a typo, but it's Lorne sausage not Lorna.
Scottish breakfasts are better.

bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes,
you could have tinned tomatoes if they bring back good memories
my favourite is simply fried egg and fried baby plum tomatoes

My perfect full English would be: smoked back bacon, sausage, grilled tomatoes, scrambled eggs, fried slice, bubble and squeak, mushrooms (fried, button), beans optional, followed by toast and marmalade (Frank Cooper's vintage Oxford) and accompanied by copious amounts of builder's tea.

However, as I have familial hyperlipidaemia and have to be careful of my fat intake, I usually skip the sausage (a low-fat sausage is worse than no sausage at all imo), swap the fried slice for toast, and may opt for just one poached egg instead of scrambled.

Bacon, Sausage, egg, mushrooms, beans or plum tomatoes Hash browns, toast and tea. Sometimes we do big portobello mushrooms in the oven and melt cheese on top.

Hash browns are an insult to a full English sticks nose in the air.

My ideal is:
bacon
sausage
scrambled eggs
black pudding
fried mushrooms
hash browns
HP sauce

I think baked beans are normal for an English breakfast but I am personally not that fond so I leave off mine.

It’s a lot of work for the cook if they also want to eat.
I make a variation of the Jamie Oliver tray bake where meaty things go in the oven at different times, greasing the tin, whisked eggs to bind it all together and serve it in slices. If someone wants a fried egg, it goes in whole. Beans in the microwave.
Then fire up the toaster 4 slices at a time, keep them coming. Make a huge pot of tea and put butter and marmalade out.

Eggs, fried potato’s, fried bread, tomato & mushrooms bacon and sausage and pickled onions. Bread to mop up with! Red & Brown sauce to accompany.

I'm in France and if you show the 🇬🇧 flag to anyone here 99% will spontaneously say anglais rather than britannique.