Hey urban food-eaters! Let me ask you this: how many times have you paid upwards of £20 for brunch in a loud room filled with simpering bloggers and power-tripping waiters, and thought 'pfft, I could have made that myself'?
Lots, right? Do it then.
It’s time to claim back the power. The power to say, “I want hollandaise AND syrup and I’ll choose the quantity thank you,” and “No I won’t wait an hour and a half for a table in the alley next to the bins,” and “when you recommend four to five sharing dishes per person, I KNOW YOU ARE LYING.” It’s time to roll up our sleeves, fire up our ovens and dust off that Falcon enamelware dish we use to keep receipts and hair grips in. It’s time to make our own food and stand on our own chairs to take photos of our own tables – and invite real-life people over to witness it.
Here’s how to create the ultimate brunch experience, in a place where you conveniently already live.
1. Have a lie-in
As opposed to all the hyped eateries, which are probably at least 45 minutes away and involve getting up with the cock’s crow to bag a table, your new favourite brunch place is helpfully about seven feet from your bed. So hit the snooze button. And again.
This is your chance to reclaim the original meaning of ‘brunch’ as a portmanteau combination of breakfast and lunch, rather than its modern translation: ‘any food in the world, eaten between dawn and 4pm with three coffees’.
Photo: Erica Gannett
2. Have a banquet
Another great thing about brunching at home is that no waiter will raise an eyebrow when you order three extra things ‘for the table.’ Here everything is for the table and the ‘table’ is YOU, so cover it with bonus extras. All the condiments. Spreads and sprinkles. Don’t limit yourself to a single base carb – serve French toast (use brioche or crumpets to ring the changes), cornbread, crusty sourdough AND fried potatoes, if that’s what your heart desires.
Look beyond the eggs Benedict, which has become the brunch equivalent of an ageing but well-oiled banker who won’t stop hanging round your group despite nobody inviting him, and instead look to exciting recipes from further afield. Scandinavia gives great brunch – try Nordic spiced porridge, loaded with seeds, berries and nut butter, followed by open-faced sandwiches (that’s rye bread with things piled on top, like a kind of edible Buckaroo.)
The key to hosting brunch with minimal stress is sharing dishes. Don’t attempt individual plates; go for bountiful platters and dishes that you can plonk on the table and be done with. Turkish baked eggs are great as a hands-on sharing dish – top with whipped yoghurt, chilli and a lake of molten butter – or wake people up with Korean belly pork, kimchi and steamed buns, or a fiery sweet potato and chorizo hash.
And FYI, Mexican-inspired sweetcorn fritters are fast becoming the new thing to put avocado on top of. The trick is to blend half of your sweetcorn into the pancake batter and add the other half in whole kernels, so that golden sweetness runs throughout (this recipe by Fern Green is a winner). They’re also great to fry up in advance and keep warm in the oven, so nobody is forced to sit in a sweetcorn sauna of your own making. Serve with feta, bacon, chorizo, sour cream, syrup and/or hot sauce, for a brunch that laughs in the face of #cleaneating.
Photo: Janelle Jones
3. Put an egg on it!
Because it’s a millennial tic, putting eggs on things. Toast? Put an egg on it. Pancake? Put an egg on it. Granola? Why the hell not. Maybe it’s because our cash-poor generation is making up for reluctance in the reproductive department by really getting egg-happy in the kitchen instead. Maybe it’s because a yolk-shot is a guaranteed Instagram win. Either way, when it comes to brunch, baby, it ain’t over till it’s ova.
Mastering the perfect poached egg is a skill a bit like playing the piano or knowing all the prime numbers: nice to show off if you have it, but basically irrelevant if you don’t. Fried is a million times easier, and just as attractive – if you’re nervous of oil, use a low-cal coconut oil spray or just buy a really non-stick frying pan. Avoid snotty, uncooked white by popping a lid over the pan to briefly steam the egg, but be careful not to let the yolk cook.
Or if spherical orbs are your dream, try soft-boiled instead. Lower an egg gently into boiling water and leave it on the heat for six minutes, then plunge into cold water until it’s cool enough to peel. All the gorgeous, oozing yolk without anyone yelling “MAKE A VORTEX!” over your shoulder. Sundays are too short to spend them making vortexes.
Photo: Erin Phraner
4. Have booze
Here’s a secret: all brunches are bottomless when you have them in your own house and Prosecco is on a 2-for-£10 at Sainsbo’s.
At home there is no small print telling you ‘limitless’ booze actually means ‘as much as you can drink in an hour before we take your glass away and ask you to put your shoes back on’. No, this is your opportunity to get gently fuzzy-brained at midday on a comfy blanket of carbs, within walking distance of your duvet. The limit does not exist.
Celebrate by branching out beyond the usual syrupy fizz and soupy Bloody Marys. Knock up a watermelon agua fresca with a slosh of vodka, or be bold and mix a jug of Mexican verdita. That’s a base of fresh coriander, mint, lime, pineapple juice and green chilli, blitzed smooth and served with tequila, and it is honestly the only green juice you need to know about.
Photo: Anna Basile
5. Have pudding
Look if you’re going to cheat yourself out of a meal today, you should at least get a dessert in the bargain. And while the catch-22 of modern brunching is not being able to choose between sweet and savoury, under your roof, you can eat by your rules.
Sticky, buttery cardamom and cinnamon buns like these in your oven will smell better than any candle in the world, but if you’re feeling lazy then the Jus-Rol version is far better than no bun at all. Full? Shh, of course you’re not full.
Photo: Erin Phraner
6. Delayed gratification
When it’s time to dish up, leave the house and join the queue at your own front door.
If there is no queue – because let’s be honest, why would there be – line up some wheelie bins and stand behind them checking your phone and tutting periodically. Ask the wheelie bins what they plan to order. This will heighten your anticipation, and mean you’re less likely to quibble later when you charge yourself £12.99 for two eggs on toast because you have gone briefly mad with hunger.
Photo: Liz Clayman
7. Select your soundtrack
Now, to be truly authentic you would serve your brunch to a) inoffensive indie muzack, maybe Tom Odell, b) the low hum of six people in their early 30s talking about property prices in Walthamstow or c) a ‘DJ’ behind some ‘decks’ wearing ‘headphones’, booked purely so that the restaurant could write “brunch, booze and beats!!” on their Twitter.
But why not break with tradition and play something you actually enjoy instead? Maybe some scratchy Northern Soul on vinyl. Maybe a minidisc compilation of early noughties UK garage. Maybe Michael Ball’s Sunday show on Radio 2. You do you.
Photo: Erica Gannett
8. Relax
Enjoy not being shooed off your table after an hour and a half. Rejoice in not having to split the bill between four people who had lobster Benedict with truffles, and one who had a yoghurt. Partake in a traditional Sunday afternoon activity: playing a board game, going for a nice walk or taking the whole of the Observer to the loo.
You have brunched, my friend. You have brunched well.
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