What’s better than a full brunch, potatoes, sausages, eggs and toast? And, not having to wait in line for several hours. What’s better than that? Add…wait for it, no (well, hardly any), clean up.
As a lot of you know Portland is big on brunch, a traditional Portland weekend begins, and sometimes ends, on a big filling delicious meal of breakfast foods. Here in Portland there are hundreds of great places. But word has gotten out and that means there are lines. While a lot of people have come to expect the wait as part of the experience, sometimes I just want my brunch sooner rather than later. So when Cook’s Illustrated showed a recipe for one pan brunch in under an hour (Half the average brunch-line I wait in!) I had to try it.
All the fixings included the following.
12oz Yukon gold potatoes, chopped
Vegetable oil and salt and pepper
breakfast sausages
sturdy sandwich bread and butter
eggs
To get started, turn the oven up to 475. While it’s heating toss the potatoes with oil and salt and pepper, feel free to add other seasonings too. Take a sheet pan and cover with foil and then spray with non-stick spray. When the oven is ready spread the potatoes evenly and bake for 20 minutes, try not to move them too much because you want that nice browning on the bottom.
While the potatoes are cooking, butter the bread and then use a biscuit cutter to make a 2.5 inch hole in the bread. You’ll be making “Toads in the Hole” with this method. Don’t skimp on the butter, it’ll keep the toast from drying out.
When the potatoes are done, stir them around a bit and add the sausages. Cook that for 12 minutes to get nice brown sausage.
When that sausages are done, shove everything to one end of the pan and add the toast. Cook for 4 minutes. You can add up to four pieces of toast easily, but I only used two. Don’t make the same mistake I did and use too little butter.
Now, if you’re like me, you want nice runny eggs. So I turned the oven down to 450 when the toast was done (breaking from the recipe). Pull the pan out, spray a little extra non-stick spray into the toast hole and then add the eggs and season them. The built up heat from the pan and the spray should help it not to stick. Cook until just set, about 3 minutes.
What I got was a really really nice breakfast, and only had to clean the cutting board, knife and pan, which was made easier from the foil. A little hot sauce on the eggs and a cup of coffee and I was all set in under an hour.
