Assorted, oven toasted nuts tossed with rosemary, brown sugar, New Mexican red chile powder, and melted butter.

From years of working breakfast and brunch service at various restaurants I have developed a good sense of timing. Getting all elements of breakfast hot on the plate is essential to creating a tasty start to your day.  Mise en Place is key to successful cooking. First you must prep ALL of your ingredients (veggies chopped, custard made, etc...), have all of your tools set and ready, before you attempt any type of cooking. This means you have your methods of cooking all mapped out. If all of the burners of your stove top are going to be used, utilize your oven. Finally presentation. You eat with your eyes first, so naturally if you make your kitchen creations pleasing to the eye, your meal, in this case breakfast, is more enjoyable.

 

Here is my Mise en Place for the breakfast we had this morning. The tools I used were a two burner griddle, roasting pan for the potatoes, tongs, and two spatulas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The potatoes are simple. They take about 20 or more minutes to roast so I usually begin cooking them first. Dice some russet potatoes (I leave the skin on) drizzle in some olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh chopped rosemary (rosemary and potatoes like each other), toss until every potato is coated in oil and seasoning. Preheated the oven to 425, roasting pan in the oven. Pull the hot pan out of the oven, scatter the potatoes in the pan (they will sizzle) and slide the pan back in the oven. Rather than turning them just give the pan a shake a few times during roasting.

 

 

The steaks are thinly sliced rib eyes. I salted these for about 25 minutes before I cooked them on the griddle. When I say salt I mean I covered them on both sides with cracked sea salt. After 15 minutes I washed the salt off with water, patted dry, and seasoned with salt pepper and a tinny bit of olive oil. Cooked each steak over high heat on the griddle about 3 minutes each. With the two burner griddle you can have one side of the surface blazing hot, and the other side at the lower temperature for lets say French Toast.

 

 

 

Some of us wanted fried eggs with the steak so I cracked the eggs and made individual portions.

 

 

 

 

 

 For the French Toast I made an egg custard (eggs, brown sugar, vanilla bean, and milk). The bread was a farm loaf I picked up at the grocery store. I hand cut the slices nice and thick. I began cooking the French Toast just about 5 minutes into the potato roasting time. I finished the toast with butter and a dusting of confectioners sugar.

 

 

So about midway through cooking the toast I began searing the steaks on the other side of the griddle. With minutes left of cooking I pulled the potatoes from the oven and plated them. Placed the steak over the potatoes and began cooking the eggs. The eggs take about 2 minutes for the yolk to set. I just placed the egg on top. 

 

The process of cooking today's breakfast began last night at the grocery store. I mapped out how I wanted my meal to look, how to prepare each element, and how long each element would take to cook. With just a little thought it was a success. Now on to dinner.

 

 

Santoko Blade. Let the cookery commence.