Brunch

Last weeks Sunday brunch.

Started off with a little fruit salad – figs, greengages, red grapes, segmented orange, pear.

Followed with mushroom, poached egg, bacon and roasted cherry tomatoes on toast. The bacon's cooked in the oven flattened and weighted down between 2 baking sheets which keeps it totally flat while it cooks also makes the fat and rind crispy but strangely soft at the same time. Use a decent bacon – preferably a dry cure or you’ll just end up with puddles of water and flabby fat. The poached eggs are cracked into little ramekins lined with squares of cligfilm. Twist up the edges and cook in the little bags in boiling water for a 3 mins then drop into iced water. Drop back into boiling water for a min before serving. This is a really easy way of cooking poached eggs – especially if you have a few to cook to be ready at the same time and if you don’t want to be messing around cooking them and getting the timing right at the last minute. They just pop out of the cling film at the end. The mushrooms are just done in the oven with melted butter, garlic and parsley brushed into the gills before hand.. The green on top of the eggs is matcha tea salt.

What better way to finish off brunch than with a clafoutis. The simplest thing to make. I swear by Julia Child's recipe for the batter. She also recommends cooking a thin layer of the batter in an oven and hob proof pan first and then adding the fruit, sugar followed by the rest of the batter before putting in the oven. This creates a barrier between the base of the cooking dish and the fruit. Best served cooled a little rather than  straight out the oven. The one in the photo here is an apricot clafoutis with sugared almonds and lavender infused cream.