Tower presentations have been popular for more than a decade now. Many English chefs create tower presentations for dinner entrees. I seriously doubt if any chef has ever made a breakfast tower with traditional English ingredients at a restaurant as a special du jour. Breakfast is not a high priority meal for snobbish chefs who think that cooking breakfast is beneath them. That is okay, because chefs like myself can turn heavy profits on fine dining breakfast cuisine with no competition! There are a few definitions of what a traditional "Full Monty" English breakfast is. Most people define a Full Monty breakfast as being a plate of Heinz baked beans, blood pudding, bangers, grilled mushrooms, grilled tomato, eggs, gammon, toast and chips. There are many slight variations. The Full Monty is a big hearty plate of breakfast food. Today's Tower of London breakfast has many traditional English breakfast items in the recipe. Mushy peas or mashy peas are mashed marrow peas that are tinted green. Cooked dried marrow peas or canned mushy peas both are fine for this recipe. Mushy peas are not a main stream item for breakfast, but many English people simply cannot get enough of mushy peas. Mushy peas have a nice gentle healthy comfortable flavor that is nice for breakfast. Raw blue agave nectar is not exactly an English item. It is an old gourmet Aztec cuisine item. Blue agave nectar has a gentle cactus flavor that is compatible wit ham, mashy peas and chips. Chives add a little bit of savory herb flavor to the syrup. Syrup with no pancakes? Sure! A sweet syrup like maple syrup is commonly used to glaze breakfast ham at fancy breakfast restaurants. The sweet blue agave nectar chive syrup in this entree actually compliments the flavors of the breakfast stack. A few months ago, I posted photographs of this breakfast tower on Facebook for my friends to see. A primitive character who is a bent wire art artist in England and was once a chef, made some rather rude comments on the photos about American chefs, French chefs and female chefs. Basically the famous English artist was being a fat headed bigot. He then told me that no chef is a chef, till they cook for the queen of England. I responded by saying that I have cooked dinner for the queen of England and the mad English artist who was a chef instantly unfriended me on Facebook! Ce est la vie! In America and most of the world, royalty is not exactly deeply respected, but it is respected out of social grace. The artist's comments were degrading and typical of how some English blokes light up with complaints after two stiff pints. I know how things can be, because I was the chef at an English pub for two years and I had to listen to one drunken Englishman after another complain about Americans and every other culture in the world. Its an English thing. I was working at a historic luxury resort in Death Valley at the time that I posted the pictures of this tower breakfast on Facebook and I mentioned the English artist's comment to the executive sous chef. We had quite a laugh! The executive sous chef was previously a sous chef at a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills, California. He said that he had cooked for the queen of England twice and she always orders American beef steaks. I responded by saying "I know. I thought the same thing. She is easy to please. I cooked a nice steak for the queen of England at a luxury hotel earlier in my career and she does like American beef!" Ha Ha Ha! I guess that the mad primitive English artist's cutting statement of "no chef is a chef, till they cook for the queen of England" kind of backfired. The queen likes American beef steaks! The problem for me, after all these years, is that I simply cannot remember whether the queen liked her steak cooked medium rare or medium.
Mushy Peas: Place 5 to 6 ounces of canned of mushy peas or soft cooked mashed marrowfat peas in a sauce pot.
Add 1/4 cup of water.
Add sea salt and white pepper.
Add 1 pat of unsalted butter.
Place the pot over low heat.
Gently heat the mushy peas and stir them occasionally.
Simmer till the mushy peas become a thick stiff consistency.
Keep the thick mushy peas warm on a stove top.
Chips:
Cut 3 1/2" to 4" diameter rondelle slices of russet potato that are about 3/16" to 1/4" thick. About 8 potato medallions will be needed for the tower.
Heat 1/2" of vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet to 360 degrees.
Fry the potatoes in the hot oil, till the becomes blanched and so they are not brown.
Remove the chips from the oil and let them cool.
Fry the chips in the oil a second time, till they become fully cooked and till they become golden brown.
Place the chips on a wire roasting rack to drain off any excess oil.
Season with sea salt.
Keep the chips warm on a stove top.
Gammon:
The English call ham gammon!
Cut 2 ham steak medallions that are 3/8" thick. The ham medallions should be the same diameter as the chips
Heat a griddle or saute pan over medium low heat.
Add 1 pat of unsalted butter.
Grill the gammon medallions, till they become hot and light brown highlights appear on both sides.
Keep the gammon medallions warm on a stove top.
Grilled Tomato:
Select a firm plum tomato or a firm regular tomato that is 3 1/2" to 4" in diameter.
Cut 2 medallions that are 1/2" thick.
Heat a griddle or saute pan over medium low heat.
Add 1 1/2 pats of unsalted butter.
Grill the firm tomato slices till they become hot, but not mushy or soft.
Season with sea salt and black pepper.
Keep the grilled tomato slices warm on a stove top.
Chive and Raw Blue Agave Nectar Syrup:
This syrup only takes a minute to make!
Place 4 ounces of organic raw blue agave nectar in a small sauce pot.
Add 2 tablespoon of water.
Heat the blue agave nectar over medium low heat.
When the syrup becomes hot, 1 1/2 tablespoons of thin sliced chives.
Keep the syrup warm over very low heat.
Scrambled Egg:
Heat a non-stick saute pan over medium/medium low heat.
Add 1 pat of unsalted butter.
Add 1 whisked egg.
Stir and saute, till the egg becomes fully cooked.
Keep the egg warm on a stove top.
Tower of London Breakfast:
A long skewer can be used to pierce the ingredients of the towering stack to make it more stable, if keeping the balance while serving is an issue. The skewer should be removed when serving.
Stack the tower ingredients in this order:
- 3 or 4 pan fried thin sliced chips
- 1 grilled gammon medallion
- a 1/2" thick layer of mushy peas
- grilled tomato medallion
- 2 pan fried thin chips
- 1 grilled gammon medallion
- a 1/2" thick layer of mushy peas
- 1 grilled tomato medallion
- the scrambled egg
Spoon a generous amount of the chive raw blue agave nectar syrup over the breakfast tower and onto the plate.
Garnish the tower with 2 chive strips.
No kidding! Making a tall breakfast tower that does not fall over is not an easy task. The tall Tower of London Breakfast in the pictures never collapsed, so it can be done. If a shorter tower is easier to manage, then just use the ingredients to make 2 short towers.
The reason I chose blue agave nectar was because of the flavor. People do get tired of the same old sugar syrups. Yum! ... Shawna
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