Ten Late Breakfasts
$25.00
Alexandra Carlier, with her characteristic sparkle of humour and originality, presents ten menus that require no unseemly labour in the early hours. Each recipe is guaranteed to delight your partner, family or guests on whatever scale you choose. The recipes, drawn from Cornwall and the Scottish Highlands, Alsace and New Orleans, and from Alexandra Carlier’s own inventive imagination, open up a whole new range of ideas for civilized entertaining.
- RRP: £8.95
- Format: 247 mm x 190 mm (9 ¾ x 7 ½ in)
- Pages: 128
- Weight: 0.6 kg (1.3 lb)
- Pictures: 40 colour photographs, 15 colour drawings
- Binding: Hardback
- ISBN: 978 0 04 310019 6
- Publication: 1989
The late breakfast – brunch to some – belongs to an old and wonderful tradition. Past generations, accustomed to a more leisured pace, have relished the pleasures of an unhurried feast that can be greeted with a fresh palate while the day is young. If we deprive ourselves of these pleasures, we are the poorer for it, as Alexandra Carlier, with her flair for cooking and entertaining, so persuasively demonstrates.
Introduction
Breads
Eggs
Preserves
Eye-openers, Pick-ups and Punches
CHAPTER 1: A VICTORIAN CORNISH HOUSE-PARTY
Home-Made Pork and Sage Sausages
Ham Cooked with Cider, Orange, Cloves and Honey
Raised Game Pie, Roasted Pheasant
Grilled Quail, Devilled Kidneys
Maître d’Hôtel Butter
Peach and Nectarine Salad
CHAPTER 2: A HIGHLAND FLING
Compôte of Fresh and Dried Fruit
Highland Porridge with Medium Oatmeal
Thick Grainy Porridge
Salmon Fish Cakes
Ham and Haddie
An Old-Fashioned Orange Cream
Scottish Oatcakes
Chunky Marmalade with Whisky
CHAPTER 3: A NEW ORLEANS BRUNCH
Water-Melon Extravaganza
Citrus Sundae
Eggs Florentine
New Orleans Chicken
Cajun-Style Prawns in a Spicy Tomato Sauce
Pecan Pie
CHAPTER 4: HAVE A GOOD DAY
Sunrise Supreme
Baked Apple
Walnut-Butterscotch Sauce
Banana Flip
Eggs Benedict
Oyster Omelette
Blini
Waffles and Bagels
Blueberry Muffins and Cinnamon Toast
CHAPTER 5: A BARBECUE BRUNCH
Courgette Parcels
Grilled Corn on the Cob
Parsley Butter
Breakfast on a Stick
Whole Calf’s Liver Wrapped in a Caul
Mushroom Caps filled with Chevril Butter
Turkey and Prawn Brochettes
Saffron Rice
Noisettes of Lamb Marinated in Mint and Yoghurt
Pineapple and Orange Brochettes
Strawberry Coulis
Oranges in the Ashes
CHAPTER 6: A VEGETARIAN BRUNCH
Special-Blend Muesli with Fruit and Nuts
Apricot Purée
Hazelnut and Honey Yoghurt
Sweet Spinach Gâteau with Pine Nuts and Raisins
Mushroom and Thyme Pudding-Soufflé
Mushroom Purée
Bean Feast
Apricot Crumble with Almonds
CHAPTER 7: AN ALSACE CELEBRATION
Boeuf en Brioche
Saucisson en Brioche
Paupiettes de Veau
Creamed Mushrooms
Selection of Smoked Meats
Tarte aux Pommes
Pain aux Fruits Secs
CHAPTER 8: AN IMPROMPTU ARRANGEMENT
Compôte of Dried Figs and Prunes with Port
Breakfast in One
Cold Meat Platter with various accompaniments including Purée of Sweet Peppers
Crushed Redcurrents in Sour Cream
Chicory and Orange Salad, Pear and Avocado Salad
Crêpes with fillings, including Tomato and Ham, Prunes with Cinnamon and Fromage Blanc
CHAPTER 9: A BIRTHDAY BENDER
Caviar and Sour Cream Canapés
Parma Ham and Fig Croûtes
Salmon and Spinach Roulade
Salmon Kedgeree
Traditional Kedgeree of Smoked Finnan Haddock
Kirsch-Soaked Fantasy Birthday Cake
Simple Almond Cake
CHAPTER 10: A ROMANTIC BREAKFAST FOR TWO
Oeufs à l’Amour
Smoked Salmon Parcels
Passion Fruit Salad
Coeurs à la Crème
Alexandra Carlier is a distinguished cookery writer and broadcaster. She was a key contributor to the highly acclaimed Time-Life Good Cook series and to the Carrier’s Kitchen series published by Marshall Cavendish. She is the author of The Dinner Party Book (Collins, 1986), a regular contributor to Taste magazine and a guest cook for The Times.
INTRODUCTION
I firmly believe that a well laden late breakfast table can provide a calming respite from hectic modern life. Too often breakfast is a hurried and unsociable meal at an unspeakable hour. That is not the subject of this book. Here, you will find ideas and recipes for relaxed meals to enjoy with friends.
For many people, such late, leisurely breakfasts can only occur at the weekends or during holidays, which means they should be treated as a luxury to be savoured in full. They can also be fun; the menus here are deliberately playful, drawing freely on historical precedents. There is no reason why we should not all enjoy the pleasures of the leisured classes in past centuries, when time and circumstance allow.
NEW ORLEANS BRUNCH
The hallmark of New Orleans food is its flamboyance. This is a city which has established not merely a tolerance of ethnic mixture but, rather, a regard for them. The French contributed sauces, the Creoles added their seasonings (some of them stingingly hot), the Spanish introduced mixtures of pork, poultry and seafood. The Cajuns, who came down from Canada in 1775, added their own spices to the melting pot. And, all around, the good American soil yielded a wonderful harvest of exotic fruits and vegetables, with plantains, bananas, sweet potatoes and corn galore.
Some of this spirit is reflected in the brunch menu. The fruit salads that open the meal are certainly on the showy side: the Extravaganza is a ravishing spectacle of tropical fruits contained in a basket carved out of a huge water-melon while the Citrus Sundae offers refreshing orange and grapefruit segments and kiwi fruits, with lime juice, in individual half-grapefruit shells.
