Friday, July 11, 2008

Les Oeufs et les Pommes Frites




While I was incapacitated with my gammy neck and shoulder, Mick had to make dinner for a few nights. Now his culinary skills may be a little limited, but he can always be counted upon to rustle up a mean egg and chips. What would we do without this Great British standby?

For the uninitiated, British chips are not French fries, those slivers of deep fried potato by-product served up by all the burger joints, but slices of deep-fried real potatoes. In the good old days, these would have been deep-fried in lard or beef dripping, but nowadays, in our quest for healthier food (I use the term loosely in this case), they are deep-fried in veggie oil.

The eggs are also fried in a little veggie oil, we like ours over-medium, so the yokes are still runny, but cooked. Great for dunking your chip butties in.

For yer chip butty, you need two pieces of sliced bread, here we use wheat, but in England it would have to be thick sliced Warburtons white bread, heavily slathered in butter so that when you pack your chips in and eat it, the butter runs down your arm. I already mentioned that I am making no health claims for this dish.

You also need a dollop of HP brown sauce on the side of your plate, but if you can’t get that, A1 Bold and Spicy steak sauce will do (we don’t want any wishy-washy tomato ketchup here, thank you!). You also need to dose your chips heavily with salt and malt vinegar, chips are the only thing I ever use salt on, but I’ll talk about that some other time.



La pièce de resistance the Chip butty

Egg and Chips

Serves 2
Ingredients:

Chips

3 large russets
Sufficient vegetable oil for deep frying

Eggs

4 free-range or organic eggs.
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions:
Pre-heat deep-fat fryer to 400°F
  • While oil heats, peel, wash, dry, and chip potatoes.
  • Add potatoes to fryer, when they start to brown, remove fryer basket of chips and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Doing this ensures a crispy outside and soft inside chip.
  • While chips rest, in a skillet heat oil for eggs.
  • Put chips back in oil until browned.
  • Fry eggs to desired doneness
  • Serve immediately with condiments and bread as noted above. Yum!


    12 comments:

    Jan said...

    I LOVE egg and chips!

    Emily said...

    You've won my heart! I don't know, this is really simple, but it looks incredible. I love the French also.

    Beth (jamandcream) said...

    Nothing better than good old chips - with lashings of HP! Yum

    Chef Jeena said...

    We love egg and chips or someimes egg chips and beans. :-D Sometimes the most simple foods are the most tasty!!

    test it comm said...

    Both the chip and eggs and the chip butty with HP sauce sound good!

    Pam said...

    OMG that looks heavenly! What else could help you recuperate but a classic like this? HP Sauce is my husband's favorite ... he can't do without his Coleman's Mustard or HP Sauce. My mouth is watering just looking at those chips. Tell your husband, great job.

    Raquel said...

    ok, now I am going to have to try a chip butty with HP sauce. That sounds really great! As for eggs, I like mine scrambled *sheepish grin here*.

    Jennifer said...

    Holy crap that looks good! Those are my favorite kind of chips big thick russets! with a side of ranch of course!

    Jan said...

    Thanks, everyone. Mick will be over the moon that his "speciality" has generated all these lovely comments.

    Marie Rayner said...

    I found your page from a link on Raquel's page! You are a girl after my own heart! Egg and chips, my favourite meal! Oh, and a chip buttie as well. I like mine unadulterated with malt vinegar and salt on the cheapest softest white bread I can find, and with lots of butter. Heaven!

    Jan said...

    Hi Marie, thanks for dropping in. I hope you'll come back this way again.

    Brittany said...

    I love runny eggs and chips!