Breakfast Potatoes

Decided to treat the Darling this a.m. to Breakfast Potatoes, this is a dish that doesn't surface too often in our little home, the reasons will become obvious as this post unfolds.

Firstly put two small potatoes on to boil until just soft. I like these red skinned lovelies with the creamy yellow flesh.


While the potatoes are cooking, trim the rind and fat from 3 rashers of bacon, cut the rinds into 2" bits and pop them into a heavy based fry pan on a medium low heat to render out some of that oh so lovely, but oh so bad for you, bacon fat.
Cut the three bacon rashers into 3 equal lengths, reserving to one side the last 3rd from the end, you know, those skinny little bits that bacon wants to end with, keeping the nice middle and eye for the breakfast plate.


Finely dice the ends of the bacon rashers and keep to one side for a bit, and while you are wielding that knife, chop a small wedge of both red and green capsicum (bell pepper) into medium dice.

And go ahead and chop the half onion into medium dice, keeping diced onion separate from the capsicum.

This cutting mat looks like it has seen much better days but it is only about 5 weeks old, hmmm, perhaps not my finest kitchen purchase, still its better than the lot I bought a few days before that, they curled into unusable lumps of uselessness very first time in the dishwasher. Ugh!

Now that the bacon fat has rendered down, remove the bacon rinds from the pan, and pop them to one side, added to some noodles for a doggie breakfast will buy you instant droolie love. I'm talking seriously wet toes here.

Add a goodish slosh of olive oil to the bacon fat in the pan, probably a little less than 1 tablespoon but this will vary with the size of the potatoes you have used, more potato, more oil.

Add the diced onion to the pan, turning the heat to medium high.

Fry the onion, stirring occasionally until onion is just becoming translucent.

Now add the finely diced bacon to the onion in the pan, keeping heat at medium high.

Continue to stir occasionally while onion and bacon begin to brown.

While the onion and bacon is crisping and browning, finely mince a small clove of garlic.

Add to onion and bacon which is browning nicely, stir through and leave to finish browning.

Scoot the bacon and onion mix to one side of the pan, and move that side furthest from the heat. Add the bacon 1/3rds to the hotter side of the pan.

Turn the browning bacon and scoot it to the top of the fry pan, add the chopped capsicum to the pan and allow to heat, stirring into onion and bacon mixture.

Now take your cooked potatoes and cut them into chunks, not too big, not too small or they will break down.

Stack the cooked bacon rashers on the side of the pan.

Add the chunked potatoes to the capsicum, bacon, onion mix and stir to coat with cooking oil.

Move the pan up on the heat so heat is now under the potatoes and the bacon rashers are resting a little.

Using a spatula or wooden spoon, press down on potatoes slightly, not to crush but to give good contact with the pan to brown and crisp the outside.

Season the potato mix well, 'cause you just know that potatoes are one of the things in life that need to be seasoned well.

Flip the potato mix over a couple of times to crisp everything up nicely, I like the crunchy well browned bits, caught just short of burning.

Stack your little pile of bacon rashers on their edge against the pan side, you will need the room and its an easy way to keep the bacon warm while allowing it to drain.

Now add a thinly sliced small piece of eye fillet steak per serve.

I like eye fillet even though it is rather pricey, there is absolutely no waste, it cooks quickly and is usually tender.

Add your egg to cook along with the steak and with a bit of luck and a fair breeze, the egg will be done with a nice soft yolk, the steak slices will be medium rare, the bacon crispy, the potatoes all nicely browned.

And the best bit of all? Its a one pan dish.

The finished dish, Darling Style,

While I had mine with a poached egg on unbuttered toast, I had a little nest of fresh tomato sauce which was left over from our pasta last night under my soft poached egg. All that yummy yolk flowed down through the tomato sauce into the toast. Heaven.

And now of course you know why we don't have this dish all that often, slimming it ain't, but yum some it is!

And of course it is so filling that lunch is not needed.......a winner all round, low on dishes, low on energy spent cooking, but sadly rather high in the fat levels, oh well, two out of three ain't too bad now is it?.