I Heart Cooking Club - Jamie Oliver's Invited to Brunch!

This week's IHCC options are wide open, as it's Pot Luck Week. While the other die-hard cooking club members may be sticking to Yotam Ottolenghi's recipes, I am still having fun with the idea of exploring the other chefs that the club has sponsored over the past couple years. Today, I decided to explore Jamie Oliver's archives on his website ...



It's a long weekend here in the States and as we honor our armed services personnel and the many who have died serving our country, we also treat this weekend as the unofficial start of the summer season. That means long weekends, vacations with friends and fam, cook-outs in the back yard, and lazy Saturdays and Sundays when brunch is an easy affair.

This is my idea of an easy brunch!  Get yourself some good English muffins, some fresh eggs for scrambling, a small rasher of smoked wild sock-eye salmon, and some sour cream and herbs and you have an easy and tasty brunch dish. Make a Bloody Mary or Mimosa, brew some good coffee, slice a melon or cut up some berries and you will feel totally pampered!

I loved this dish and it does seem to suit Jamie Oliver's easy-going slapdash cooking style. Gotta love a regular guy who rattles the pots and pans for his family and is outspoken about using fresh fruits and vegetables, trimming the fat, and living a bit simpler! The one fun thing I topped the sour cream with, besides the fresh chopped chives was a handful of fried capers. Yup ... what a nice bit of salty crunchy pizzazz. I have this tiny little saucepan that was just perfect for heating a few tablespoons of peanut oil. In went some drained, rinsed, and dried (very important!) capers for just about one minute. They fried up and popped open and when drained were crispy and delish. Perfect accent flavour for the salmon, chives, and eggs!

So ... an easy brunch dish that could easily be translated to a larger buffet option, if you were planning to have a houseful for the weekend! Enjoy!

Now head over the the I Heart Cooking Club's blog site to see what everyone else is bringing to this week's Pot Luck! Just hit the link right up above!

Jamie Oliver’s Scrambled Egg Muffins with Smoked Salmon and Sour Cream

Ingredients:

4 large eggs

Kosher salt

Black pepper

4 English muffins, split and toasted at the last minute

20 g. butter ( about 2 tbsp)

8 slices of smoked sock-eye salmon

4 tbsp. sour cream

4 tbsp. snipped fresh chives

3 tbsp. capers, rained, rinsed, and dried on paper towels

3 tbsp. peanut oil in a very small saucepan or fry pan

Making the Dish:

1. Lay four plates out on a counter work space. Add melon wedges or small bowls of berries to each plate.
2. Prepare the English muffins for toasting on a broiler pan.
3. Place 1 tbsp. of the butter in a non-stick fry pan and set aside.
4. Place the peanut oil in the small pan and place it over medium high heat. When the oil is hot, drop the prepared capers into the hot oil and fry for just about one minute or until the caper are browned and crisped open. Gather with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Set aside. Place the pan with the hot oil in a safe place to cool.
5. Whisk the eggs in a bowl and add some salt and pepper.
6. Heat the pan and melt the butter to a golden bubble, pour in the eggs and push them around the pan to scramble. When the eggs are still slightly ‘loose’, turn off the heat and toast the muffins.
7. When the muffins are golden, butter them and place them buttered side up on the plates.
8. Pop the other tablespoon of butter onto te hot eggs and toss to melt. Divide the eggs in mounds over the muffins, top with slices of smoked salmon.
9. Place a dollop of sour cream over each mound of eggs/salmon.
10. Sprinkle on the chives and crisped capers.
11. Serve immediately with breakfast cocktails or hot coffee.

Serves 4