Sausage and Egg Muffin

Let's start by saying this isn't really a recipe, more of a tip or review!  I really like the breakfast menu at McDonalds, and in particular, the Sausage and Egg McMuffin.  But can I justify £2.19 for what is essentially a snack?  I've been experimenting for a while now, and have finally come up with my own version that tastes better and is much cheaper (about 65-90p).  Mainly, it's been about finding the best tasting ingredients.  By the way, I do my main shop at Tesco, but I promise I have tried products from all over the place - it's just a coincidence that the Tesco products win for me!

Sausage

It's surprisingly hard to find these.  I tried Lorne Sausage (the flat square sausage from Scotland).  I tried taking the meat from a normal sausage and squishing it into a hamburger shape, and also adapting the sausage meat in various ways.  There was also a sausage patty that Iceland sells - which I didn't rate at all, very fatty yet still somewhat tasteless.  All of these were OK, but didn't taste exactly how I would like.  The winner here is Tesco frozen Pork and Herb Sausage Patties (£2.30 for 6) which are delicious.

(A special shout out to my own Vegetable Roll here too, it is absolutely delicious in a muffin, but not the same as the Maccy-Ds :-) )

Muffin

Almost all English Muffins you can buy taste pretty much the same.  However, for this 'recipe', it is really important to (a) toast them and (b) butter them.  I have found two in particular that are fab - Warburtons (80p for 4) is the cheapest 'good' one I found.  But the very best muffin for me is Tesco Finest Cheese and Black Pepper English Muffins (£1.30 for 4) - the extra flavour is worth the extra cost!

Cheese

I know people will hate me for this, but 'real' cheese just isn't right on this!  You can bleat on about it all you like, but you need the more plasticky cheese single for this!  The very best ones are from Dairylea, but there is so little difference I usually use the cheapest ones, like Creamfields Singles at the bargain price of 50p for 10.

Egg

I've done lots of experiments with eggs for muffins!  The closest to the real thing is to buy an egg ring and use it to fry the egg in a frying pan.  A good alternative for me was to crack the egg into a ramekin and bake it in the oven.  But here's the controversial bit - I don't like the egg in the McDonald's version.  McDonalds *do* have an egg that I like, more of an omelette, but they only use it in their breakfast wraps and bagels.  So I crack my eggs into a shallow tapas dish, beat them up, and microwave them for 1-2 minutes.  Omelette-y goodness is a massive improvement!

Ketchup

Only one ketchup exists - Heinz.  Discussion over.

Ulster Fry

OK, so firstly, this picture does not do justice to the delight that is the Ulster Fry.  I mean I've done some processing on the photo, but unfortunately, I took my eye off the ball when cooking this, and there's no getting away from it, almost everything on the plate is overdone.  But this blog is meant to be about the real world, and in the real world this happens sometimes...  and it was still absolutely delicious!

Also, today's blog is more of a serving suggestion than a recipe... but I wanted to bring a few of my recipes together into one meal.  Forget about calories with this one, it's a huge portion, filling treat of a weekend breakfast.

Finally, there will be many Northern Irish folk fainting at the prospect of beans on an Ulster Fry.  No, they're not traditionally part of it.  But I like them, so I say PFFT!

Ingredients (per person)

2 slices Bacon
2 slices Vegetable Roll
1/2 Soda Bread Farl
1 Potato Cake
1 Egg
100-200g Baked Beans
Brown Sauce or Ketchup (optional)

Method

Honestly, the method is simply cook everything and bung it on a plate!  But if you'd like a bit more detail...

1.  Start cooking the bacon and vegetable roll.  You can either do this by frying in a pan with a little oil, grilling, or oven baking in a hot oven.

2. When there's about 5 minutes to go on your meat, pop your beans in a saucepan and heat on a medium heat until hot.  (Or place in a microwave dish and zap in the microwave for a couple of minutes).

3.  At the same time, heat up a little oil in a frying pan and crack an egg into it.  Add the soda bread and potato cake and cook for a minute or two on each side until they're how you like them,  (You can also do the bread and potato cake by sticking them in a toaster, but that just isn't quite as nice as they come out a bit dry - although you can butter them afterwards to help with that.)

4.  Once everything is cooked, bung them on a plate, add ketchup or brown sauce to taste and get it down your neck :-)

Cabbage and Bacon (or Beans)

I hesitated to even put this on Grubbed Up! because it's just too simple, and honestly, it doesn't look like it's anything special.  But then I realised that it's too delicious not to share, and it's a big portion, filling meal for two that's not too unhealthy!  It's funny, because as a child, you couldn't have paid me to eat cabbage, but now it's one of my favourite vegetables.  Using pre-prepared and frozen vegetables makes this an easy midweek dinner.  And don't be snobby about frozen or canned vegetables, they still count for your 5 a day!

If you want to make this vegetarian, it's also delicious using a can of butter beans instead of the bacon.

Ingredients
600g Baby New Potatoes (or you could use a large can of potatoes)
300g Chopped Onions (I use frozen onions, because of my laziness!)
300g Sweetcorn
8-10 rashers of bacon
Oil for frying.
Black Pepper (optional)
Butter or Low Fat Spread (optional)
HP Brown Sauce (optional)
300g Chopped Cabbage - Tesco do a pack of prepared cabbage and leek that I love for this!

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC.  Place the potatoes on a baking tray and stab each one with a fork.  Cook in the oven for 1 hour.

2. Turn the oven up to 220ºC.  Place the bacon on a baking tray and put into the oven with the potatoes.  Depending on how you like your bacon, it will take around 10-20 minutes to cook.  (I like the bacon snappable - but most of you will think that's massively overdone!).  Make sure you turn it over halfway through cooking or it will stick to the tray.

3. While the bacon is cooking, place a wok or pan on a high heat and get it nice and hot (You really need very little oil).  Add the onions and cook for 5 minutes until they are soft.

4. Add the sweetcorn to the wok and cook for a 2-3 more minutes. (Frozen sweetcorn takes a minute or two longer).

5. Add the cabbage to the wok, along with a good pinch of black pepper (if you like it).  Don't be tempted to stir it yet, give it about 2-3 minutes to just sit and wilt a bit in the steam of the pan.

6. Now stir the whole vegetable mix together and cook until the cabbage is completely cooked through.  You will need to keep watching this, as it can stick to the wok if you're not careful.

7. Take the potatoes from the oven and divide between two plates.  If any are particularly big, chop them into smaller pieces.  If you want to, add a little butter for flavour.

8.  Pile on your vegetables from the wok, add your bacon and HP sauce (if using) and enjoy!

Northern Irish Pasties

Another peculiarly Northern Irish food is the Pastie.  For the rest of the British Isles, a pastie is some sort of pastry with a savoury filling, but for the Ulsterman, it's normally battered deliciousness, available at every chippy (mmm, pastie and chips 🤤).  Even better when put in a bread roll to make a Pastie Bap!

Ingredients

500g Northern Irish Vegetable Roll
1kg Potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks (I often use frozen mash instead as a time saver)
100g Butter
2x 130g Batter Mix (yes, another cheat - but it's only about 25p a pack and saves time!)
Salt
Oil for frying

Method

1. Cover the potatoes in lightly salted water and bring to the boil.  Boil for 15-20 minutes until soft.

2. Drain the potatoes and mash with the butter until smooth.  Try to use as little butter as possible, as you want your potatoes to be fairly dry.  I'm really bad at doing mash without lumps (I have no patience!), so I use a potato ricer to get it smooth.

3. Put the vegetable roll and mash into a bowl and knead together with your hands until the mixture is an even paste.

4. Shape the mixture into balls that fit in the palm of your hand and squash slightly to make patties.  You should get around 20 from this mixture.  Place these in the fridge to chill for around 30 minutes.

5. Heat your oil in a pan (I use a wok) - if you have a deep fryer use that.  Make sure the oil is hot.

6. It's not hot enough. Wait until it's hot!  In the meantime, make up the batter mix from the pack instructions, but use slightly less water than it says to get a thick batter.

7. Coat the patties in the batter (it's easiest if you keep one hand wet and one hand dry).  Now the tricky bit... Hold the battered patty half in, half out of the oil for a few seconds, before dropping in.  This gives the batter time to set slightly before you let go, which will help it not to stick to the bottom of the pan (or basket).

8. Fry in batches of around 4 patties at a time (to prevent the oil cooling down) for around 5-7 minutes until the batter is a golden and crispy.  Turn them over in the pan halfway through cooking, to get an even colour. (Don't turn them too much, as they have a tendency to fall to bits if you do.)  Let them cool a little before eating.

It's unlikely you will eat 20 pasties in one go!  You can keep them in the fridge for a few days, and reheat in the oven at 230℃ for around 10 minutes.  They can also be frozen - double the cooking time if oven baking straight from frozen.  Oven cooking is great, as it makes the batter go extra crispy!

Alternative options

If you're not keen on deep fat frying and batter and all the mess and potential burning that goes with that, skip steps 5-8.  You can just fry the patties as they are for a few minutes on each side, and they still taste great.  Or, coat the patties in plain flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumbs, and bake in the oven at 230℃ for about 15-20 minutes until cooked through.

Northern Irish Vegetable Roll

Vegetable Roll is confusing to folk from outside Northern Ireland.  Why?  Because it's mostly meat!  More correctly, it's sausage meat and vegetables, normally served fried or grilled in rounds as part of an Ulster Fry, Northern Ireland's favourite cooked breakfast.  Imagine slices of black pudding, but made from sausage meat instead of blood.

Since moving to Manchester, I've craved vegetable roll a lot, but never been able to find it.  One of the Asda stores nearby did have an experiment where they replaced the butchery counter with a franchise from a Northern Irish butcher and for one glorious year, vegetable roll was available whenever I wanted it... but sadly it didn't last.  I've been trying to make my own for a while, but the one recipe I found for it online tasted wrong and included odd ingredients I wouldn't normally have (what on earth is mace??!!).  Eventually I started experimenting and this is the version I've liked the most.

Ingredients

900g Sausages
(2 packs - these should traditionally be beef, but I like Asda Butcher's Selection Pork & Tomato)
2 Spring Onions
2 Baby Leeks (they had none today, so I used about half a normal leek)
120g Fine Breadcrumbs (yes, I cheat on this and use packet breadcrumbs, but I'm lazy!)
Pinch of salt and black pepper

Method

1. Take the skins off the sausages and put the sausage meat in a bowl.

2. Finely chop the spring onions and leeks.  I use an electric chopper (a bit like a tiny food processor) that I picked up for about a tenner.  It makes life easier and gives you nice tiny pieces.

3. Add the chopped leeks and spring onions, along with the breadcrumbs to the bowl with the sausage meat, and add a little salt and pepper.

4. Time to get your hands dirty!  Knead the whole mixture with your hands until it all comes together.  It's done when the vegetables are fairly evenly spread and you can no longer feel the grittiness of the breadcrumbs.

5. Turn out the mixture on to a board and form into a thick sausage shape, about 6-8 cm thick.

6. Wrap the mixture tightly in cling film.  If you need to, roll it while in the cling film to get a nice round shape.  Then chill the sausage in the fridge for a few hours.

7.  Once chilled, cut the sausage into rounds around 1-2 cm thick.  If you're not using it all at once, it will freeze really well.  To cook, fry or grill the rounds for around 5 minutes on each side until cooked through.  Or do what I do, oven bake it at 180℃ for about 15-20 minutes - this results in a bit of a drier meat, but I love the crunchy crust this gives the outside.