John Torode’s New Year’s Day brunch
John’s back in the kitchen with a delicious brunch idea for New Years Day. His recipe for the perfect scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and French toast stuffed with cream cheese and chive filling - is sure to start your January off just right.
Cream cheese french toast, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs
Serves: 2
Ingredients
For the French toast:
100g cream cheese
2 tbsp yoghurt
Small bunch of dill
Lemon rind
1 loaf of bread unsliced white tin loaf
2 eggs
Salt and ground black pepper
100ml milk
To cook:
20g butter
30ml vegetable oil
For the scrambled eggs:
6 large eggs
100g butter
30g crème fraiche
1 lemon
8 slices of smoked salmon
Method
1. Whip the cream cheese , yoghurt and chopped dill together, maybe a little pepper and then add the lemon rind.
2. Cut off 2 large thick slices and remove the crust, slice a pocket in one end. Fill the pocket with the cream cheese mix
3. Mix the eggs with the seasoning, add the milk and mix well
4. Place 2 slices of the filled bread in the egg mix and turn three times, leave to soak for 30 seconds and turn again.
5. Gently heat the pan, add a little oil, and then some butter. When the butter has melted and starts to sizzle, gently place in two pieces of the soaked bread.
6. Cook each side gently, adjust the heat so it cooks slowly and smells of buttery toast .. It will take a couple of minutes each side.
7. To make the scrambled eggs, crack 6 eggs into a bowl and puncture the yolks with a fork, but do not whisk, add the crème fraiche.
8. Heat a heavy based pan over a medium heat and drop in the butter. Add a good pinch of salt and a couple of turns from the pepper grinder then add the eggs when the butter is nearly all melted. Stir with a wooden spoon in one direction only ensuring that none of the egg sticks to the bottom.
9. When it looks like thick lumpy custard, remove the pot from the cut the French toast in half, top with some egg; lay over the smoked salmon a squeeze of lemon and crème fraiche.