UKC

I passed a couple of cafes this morning on my way to a training day. Some offering full English breakfasts. I got to wondering;
“What do you think needs to be in a breakfast for it to count as a full English? What things would be good to have extras? What about a full Scottish? A Full Welsh? A full Cornish? Etc”

In reply to puppythedog:

Bacon, fried egg, sausages, baked beans, fried tomato, hash browns, black pudding, fried mushrooms, fried bread.

I spent a year in Bolton, and the fried breakfasts were the only good thing about the place.

In reply to Piskobrod:

hash browns - isn't that an American import ? And add haggis for the Scottish version

In reply to Piskobrod:

Correct. Apart from hash browns. Too American.

In reply to Piskobrod:



Well that's funny.... my pal from Norn' Iron used to cook up an Ulster Fry and the only difference was that it included white pudding.

In reply to Doug:

Agreed - no hash browns but I'd say no haggis either, or substitute black pudding for haggis at a push. Needs either Rowies or Tattie scones to count as "full scottish"

Cheers!

Stu

In reply to StuDoig:


Full Scottish has to have square sausage.

In reply to puppythedog:

As a Lancastrian, Black Pudding is essential. Love a bit of fried bread. Not keen on garnish, so no tomatoes or mushrooms for me.

In reply to Piskobrod:
Yes but Hash Browns are a modern addition & the Black Pudding is a regional addition - I would say Lancashire is its source. It would be replaced by Haggis in Scotland or White Pudding in Ireland, also a Scottish would use Lorne Sausage.

In reply to Piskobrod:

No hash browns, no beans.

In reply to puppythedog:

No beans, can't stand them. Hash browns (or oatcake in some parts) and black pudding optional. Full Scottish obviously needs to involve lorne sausage.

In reply to puppythedog:

May not be classical but i love hash brown with mine. Black pudding over haggis and no tomatoes. Bread should be fried in the bacon fat too.
God i feel hungry now!!

In reply to the sheep:


Yep, agree with this. It might be a recent addition, but it's a good addition. Unless tattie scones are available, in which case have those. Beans are also good.

In reply to puppythedog:

In our household we are agreed that the tomato is a required element of a good cooked breakfast/full english. The reason being it makes everything else seem all the more delicious in comparison to the crappy watery fruit/veg hanging on the side of the plate.

For a full score it should be a solitary, uncut, fried, tinned plum tomato. Awful.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


Baked beans are an abomination - the sauce contaminates everything else and dominates the overall taste to the detriment to that of proper fried meat. I always ask for extra tomato or mushrooms instead of beans.

And you can't beat tattie scones.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

An Ulster fry MUST include potato bread* and soda farls.

Hash browns have no place in any breakfast in Britain or Ireland.

*tattie scones

In reply to puppythedog:
In our local cafe, the best addition is slices of fried halloumi.

And a 'yes' for hash browns here as well.

In reply to puppythedog:

Has to have beans

In reply to puppythedog:

Full English minimum spec: Bacon, Eggs, Sausage, Tea, Toast. Mind you I'd be pretty pissed off if my full English only consisted of this.

Full 'other home nation' as above with one 'local ingredient' added (black pudding, lava bread, haggis etc).

Coffee is NOT part of a full English although can be taken as an accompaniment.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Might be the source of calling it black pudding instead of Blood Sausage! Very much a North East staple as well.

In reply to GrahamD:

Full english in Amsterdam: sausage, bacon, egg, chips and salad. Wankers. Might you this is a nation that puts salad cream on chips so not sure what I was expecting.

You can have a joint of course, so didn't complain. And the mushrooms are for dessert. Nom nom.

In reply to RX-78:



As soon as read this I thought "I bet he lives in London". Checked profile. Correct.

I would imagine fried halloumi on a breakfast is possibly delicious, however it is simply wrong and I urge you to conduct a protest upon your next visit.

In reply to Piskobrod:


As someone above said this needs tea and toast adding to it.
Yes Hash browns are a recent American addition but in my opinion they add to it very well.

In reply to MKH:



Or the other cafe favourite: Half a rock hard, underripe tomato, with the cut side charred on the grill & the rest of it barely above room temperature. The knife provided should be insufficient to cut it. Invariably remains untouched on the side of the plate. May even be artificial.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Surely it has to be deep fried, though deep fried beans may be a problem

In reply to NorthernGrit:

Halloumi is part of a Turkish breakfast.

Halloumi and Turkish sausage mmmm

In reply to marsbar:

Surely not even soft southerners put halloumi on a fried breakfast. Mind you I was reading that they brew coffee cold down there and serve it stone cold. Sometimes with coconut oil in it. Knobs.

( don't take offence, I actually like londoners. Especially the ones that sell decent crack).

In reply to Robert Durran:

If the sauce from the baked beans dominates the overall taste then either you're adding far too much or you need fried meat that tastes of something. The tomato sauce should balance all the salty / fatty / porky flavours but not dominate.

In reply to puppythedog:

Partial to a slice of clootie dumpling. Tattie scone over hash brown. NO to beans and NO to chips (very popular down sarf, where they know *uck all about this type of thing).

In reply to Ramblin dave:

I do find the anti-bean brigade very perplexing, a good breakfast is more than the sum of its parts and losing the beans is I feel a serious mistake.

In reply to The New NickB:

Baked beans are for kids. May as well bang some smiley faces on there.

In reply to puppythedog:

Haggis, Lorne sausage, black pudding, egg, tattie scone, beans, tomato, mushroom, toast on the side. Personally I switch out tattie scones for hash brown (proper British hash brown, not the US style pile of nonsense) and leave the tomato and mushrooms.

In reply to snoop6060:


Your conflation of baked bean with spaghetti shapes only serves to prove my point.

In reply to The New NickB:

Same same. Basically soft horrible stuff in a red sugar sauce.

In reply to The New NickB:

Full English is supposed to be a harmony of distinct complementary flavours. Each bite you take 2 or 3 beautiful specimens and let them make love on your tongue.
Even the humble tinned tomato has a role to play when coupled with her perfect partner and sates the salty bacon

Beans invade all areas of the plate and reduce it all to a sickly sweet gangbang. Porno

Not as bad as people mixing everything together in scrambled eggs though! Might as well chew it all up for me and regurgitate it into my mouth

In reply to puppythedog:

Egg. Fried or...scrambled??

In reply to snoop6060:

Lay off the Amsterdam Breakfasts, it’s killing your tastebuds.

In reply to trouserburp:

Baked beans are far better than a watery tinned tomato at balancing out salty bacon. Overdoing the beans is another matter, it’s all about balance.

In reply to Flinticus:


Always fried.

In reply to MKH:



Nah the tomatoes offer contrast but don't have to be unpleasant: Grilled fresh tomatoes.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

One doesn't add it; it's what it comes in.


That is the job of the actual tomato.

In reply to kipper12:


Beans ARE the problem.

In reply to puppythedog:

Not this: http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/db670f6cb129855765878dc41a96c656

In reply to Robert Durran:

Absolutely! can't believe I missed that!!!!

In reply to Flinticus:

Quite like a poached egg with mine too, yolk has to be runny though!

In reply to Robert Durran:


I mean adding too many baked beans. One corner of the plate, with a limited interface with the rest of the breakfast. There when you want to add some to a forkful, not invading everything else.

In reply to puppythedog:
I used to go in a cafe off the A1 that did breakfast and brunch. As best as I could tell “brunch” was breakfast without toast but with chips.

In reply to puppythedog:
A full Scottish should have black pudding as well as haggis and should also have a squarie. Rowies if in the NE (a sort of Aberdeenshire croissant but with lots of suet added and then run over). Smoked haddock instead of kippers and bacon must be streaky. You can have a tomato and/or mushrooms if you must, but baked beans should be banned. I look favourably on establishments that will give me an extra egg or black pudding in lieu of the horrible red slime with its inedible little fart seeds. As bigoted against anything American as I am, I do like hash browns.
I like the sound of halloumi.

In reply to puppythedog:

Bacon, fried egg, sausages, hash browns/sauteed potato, fried mushrooms and fried bread, followed by toast and marmalade.

Served with tea and orange juice.

And it's got to be brown sauce, not red.

Anyone that comes near mine with baked beans or any form of tomato will end up wearing it - I can't stand either of them!

In reply to puppythedog:

I think we'd need to approach this from the other side, as in - if X was missing, would it still count to really cut it down to the bare minimum and still count as "full".
Mushrooms for example are a key component, but if they weren't there, I wouldn't demand a refund.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


Do you actually ask for a specific bean/sausage interface in your order? What sort of reaction do you get?

In reply to Robert Durran:

No, they normally seem to get it right by default. Do you go to places where they inexplicably ladle them over the top like gravy? Or do you mix them in on purpose?

In reply to puppythedog:

Really? 42 posts in and nobody's mentioned Bubble N'Squeak?

You lot should hang your heads in shame.

In reply to The New NickB:

'Not keen on garnish, so no tomatoes or mushrooms for me.'

Those aren't garnish, they're vegetables, part of your 5 a day!

In reply to puppythedog:

The best breakfast I’ve ever had was the morning after a significant birthday in a club hut and it comprised scrambled eggs, Stornoway black pudding and refried dauphinois potatoes.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:
Unfortunately, I don't think adding a (usually cold and watery) tinned tomato to a massive plateful of fried things will magically transmute it into healthy eating. It's like the logic we apply to the charity samosas at work: they've got peas in, so they must be good for you.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:



No they aren't.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


No, they flow/ooze from their place on the plate and inevitably end up touching the proper food. Anyway no self respecting full breakfast will have enough room on even a big plate to prevent contamination.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:



A fruit and a fungus.

In reply to puppythedog:

No potato products.

Bacon, sausage, black pudding
Mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs
Toast
Tea

In reply to puppythedog:

prefer fried potatoes to hash Brown, needs a slice of white bread and margerine to mop up everything too!

Welsh breakfast of cockles and lavabread doesn't really cut it

In reply to Oceanrower:

Really? 42 posts in and nobody's mentioned Bubble N'Squeak?

I had Bubble and Squeak for breakfast.
Absolutely delicious. Just hope the kids don't notice that the Hamsters are different to the ones they saw before they went out this morning...

In reply to puppythedog:

Bacon, egg, sausage, black pudding, beans, tomato, mushrooms. Slice of toast, marmalade, pint of tea, proper black coffee to finish (controversial, I know). Attempt to stand up without trousers visibly ripping at the seams. No need to eat again for a week.

In reply to puppythedog:

Thick cut back bacon with the fat starting to brown at the edges
Cumberland sausages, bursting out of their skins
Fried eggs (runny yolk)
Tinned tomatoes, simmered for at least 20 minutes so the juice gets thick and sweet
Mushrooms poached in their own juices
Top quality unsliced white bread (you can stick yer wholemeal - this is an ENGLISH BREAKFAST, not a lame hippy apology for being alive) toasted and slathered in butter
A big thick slab of the glory that is gently fried black pudding - a giant blood clot rammed with lumps of unctuous white fat and specked with toothsome barley
A pint mug of strong tea, with two spoons of white sugar and a good dollop of full fat milk
A slow waddle home and a big nap

In reply to puppythedog:


A pasty and a moan about English second home owners.

In reply to puppythedog:

Where do we stand on eggy bread?

In reply to Dr.S at work:
Great to feed hungry kids on a campsite but no place on an English Breakfast. Sorry. PS I do actually love it!

In reply to Dr.S at work:

It occupies the same culinary space as french toast.

T.

In reply to marsbar:


My Turkish friend has introduced me to Turkish sausage and cheese/halloumi, and Turkish cheese with olives and Raki.

Turkish sausage goes quite well in a pasta sauce in moderation. Tasty if inauthentic.

In reply to NorthernGrit:
So you northerners can catch up

www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/9-new-ways-serve-halloumi

In reply to puppythedog:

*as available n Kat’s Cafe Keswick

Vegan sausage, bacon and black pudding, potato farl, beans and tomatoes, coffee with soya milk.
I think that’s called the Full Vegan...

In reply to Big Ger:

A pasty and a moan about English second home owners.

and a bottle of Doom Bar to wash it down...

In reply to puppythedog:

Last night's dinner with an egg on top.

In reply to Dr.S at work:


Great with beans and a bit of bacon, especially at Scout Camp, but otherwise no.

In reply to puppythedog:

Tomatoes - ideally fried fresh tomatoes, but a tin of tomatoes fried in olive oil for long enough to reduce the juice to almost a puree will do, excellent part of the experience.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

On top of it, with muddy hobnails on.

In reply to puppythedog:

Fun fact - if you want to turn a full English into a full Aussie... add beetroot. Standard culinary technique. 

Cheers

LD

In reply to puppythedog:

A sizeable lass from Blackpool, fake tan, smoking, with a bottle of blue WKD in one hand and a bottle of Lambrini in the other?

 

In reply to puppythedog:

'Full Cornish' would have to include Hogs Pudding. Fried potato (teddies) would be there to, along with bacon, eggs, sausage and fried bread.

I recall an old series with Hugh Fearlessly-Eatsitall where he cooked a traditional 'Gloucestershire Breakfast':  Gloucester old spot bacon, a goose egg and half a pint of fried elvers! Looked v tasty.

I also remember Lily Savage's description of a 'Blackpool Breakfast': 20 fags and a pot of tea!

In reply to puppythedog:

Another thought about the 'minimum' full English - it should be capable of being cooked in a single frying pan (apart from the tea - for toast substitute a fried slice).

In reply to puppythedog:

In South Africa, it consists of British-style sausages, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs and fried white bread. Some ruin it by adding beans; black pudding is exceedingly rare; it is not unheard of to add onion to the tomatoes.

Most importantly, however: it is best cooked on a Skottle Braai outside one's tent in one of the great climbing campsites in the Cederberg, Montague or Waterval Boven.

The chef's primary job is to prevent the ingredients from slipping into the puddle of muck that accumulates in the centre of the skottle -- the same puddle of muck that will later make the fried bread unbelievably and exceptionally great. It's just not the same in a flat pan.

In reply to Mark Kemball:

I actually enjoy tinned tomatoes as much as the real thing but one of the criteria for my full English would be that nothing should have come out of a freezer or a tin can.

In reply to puppythedog:

No hash browns (more creeping Americanisms) or baked beans, that's aaagly. Add black pudding and fried bread. Toms best tinned and milky tea in a big feck off mug for full credentials.

In reply to puppythedog:

Bacon , Sausage , Beans , Eggs , melted cheese, cut in 'afe big tomato and a couple of Staffordshire Oatcakes.

All cooked under the grill on a tin plate , bit of brown sauce and a massive mug of tea.

 

 

In reply to Pkrynicki1984:

Melted cheese! Stop trolling. This is a serious subject. 

In reply to puppythedog:

So we've got full English, full Scottish, full Welsh, full Cornish and someone mentioned a full Vegan (do they ever eat enough to get full?), but the big question is what should be in a full Brazilian?

Sausage or tongue?

 

In reply to snoop6060:

No cheese? How on earth is he supposed to eat his oatcakes? 

In reply to snoop6060:

A breakfast without oatcakes is unthinkable .

An Oatcake without cheese should be punishable by a slow and painful death.

 

 

In reply to mcdougal:

right on.

In reply to Pkrynicki1984:

This is all true but it is part of a different breakfast to the "Full English"

 

In reply to GrahamD:

All depends which part of England your eating your breakfast from I guess, this thread sure seems to hint at that too.

Glad you agree it is true.

In reply to Pkrynicki1984:

Roaches tea room Staffordshire breakfast is a thing to savour, but a 'Full English' it ain't

In reply to puppythedog:

What if it was missing would mean it cannot be called a full English?

In reply to puppythedog:

Bacon, Sausage, Fried Egg, Tea, Toast

In reply to GrahamD:

But this is illogical. If a Full English can legitimately contain Item A (tomato, say) then it cannot be "full" if it does not contain Item A.  In other words, a Full English MUST contain all items which it can legitimately contain.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Maybe breakfasts containing beans etc are actually augmented full English ? Brains too dead to start applying set theory to breakfasts, but any breakfast sold as a "Full English" must contain at least the subset that is (Bacon, Sausage, Fried Egg, Toast, Tea)

In reply to MKH:

I'm probably massively in the minority here, but I thought yum ????

In reply to Wingnut:

A nutritionist I know says there's no such a thing as unhealthy food, only unhealthy amounts, so they're not 'bad' for you, at least.

If you add the peas, that makes them good.  

In reply to snoop6060:

SALAD!! It's an outrage. 

In reply to puppythedog:

Baked beans fried in bacon fat. Mmm... 

In reply to Pete Pozman:

Best way ever to cook beans!

In reply to snoop6060:

 

numpty northerners might though

 

In reply to puppythedog:

 

Plate also needs to be full.  None of these so called Full English where you can fit a slice of bread between the parts.

 

In reply to Lion Bakes:

Absolutely! You should really need to go for a lie down after a proper full English.

In reply to Pete Pozman:

It is indeed. What is the world coming to? Lots of countries do of course have salad, greens, soup, and / or fish for breakfast. Should not be considered in Europe of course

In reply to puppythedog:

I think a full English is more of a state of mind. 

In reply to puppythedog:

I've glanced through this and the one missing ingredient is ENGLISH mustard, none of that continental Dijon rubbish. And the bacon should be streaky well fried. Oh Yum Yum or as they say in French Miam Miam. 

In reply to jcw:

Have you tried a streaky bacon lattice? A thing of beauty!

Weave six or eight lengths of streaky and fry in beef dripping till crispy.  Two slices white bread, salted butter (on both slices), HP sauce, insert crispy lattice and eat.

 

In reply to jcw:friend 

I'm sorry my friend but absolutely no condiments or dressings should besmirch a full Monty. Only a couple of twists of black pepper all over the fried egg. 

By the way my mate Pete does a wonderful alternative to the full English which is a fried bacon wrap using Staffordshire oat cakes. I'm calling it the Middle English. Scrumptious! 

Footnote : English mustard is de rigeuer (apologies) with roast beef.