A tale of two legendary breakfasts.
INGREDIENTS:
McChicken:
American Breakfast:
Bacon/Sausage:
1 pack Breakfast sausage links
1 lb thick cut bacon
Hash Browns:
2 large russet potatoes
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
3 tablespoons reserved bacon fat or vegetable oil
2.5 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons chives, thinly sliced for garnish
Pancakes:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
1.5 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Unsalted Butter for cooking and finishing
Maple syrup, for drizzling
Fried Eggs:
4 eggs, for frying
The Filipino Breakfast:
Tocino:
2.5 pounds Tocino pork (pork shoulder), thinly sliced
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
4.5 tablespoons pineapple juice
2 drops red food coloring *optional*
Longganisa (sausages):
2 pounds ground pork shoulder
3/4 lb pork fat
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons white distilled vinegar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons fine seas salt
12 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon black pepper, finely ground
Hog casings or wax paper
Sinangag:
4 cups cooked white rice, refrigerated overnight
4.5 tablespoons vegetable oil
15 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
Salt to taste
Thinly sliced green onion *optional*
INSTRUCTIONS:
American Breakfast:
Bacon/Sausage:
Place 4-5 strips of bacon on a cold pan.
Raise the temperature to medium heat, and as the pan gets hotter and the meat gets cooked, keep flipping until the bacon has reached the desired crispiness.
Drain on a paper towel.
Save the bacon fat in a bowl for use in the hash browns recipe.
Repeat this process with sausage, placing sausages on a cold pan, and lifting the temperature to medium heat. If your sausage is raw, then sear them on high heat and pour a splash of water to lightly boil the sausages to a perfect internal temperature.
PRO TIP - Save your bacon fat. If you throw it away, it’s like throwing away free flavor.
Hash Browns:
Peel and grate two russet potatoes with a box grater and lay the grated potatoes on a clean kitchen towel. Season generously with salt to taste and toss the potatoes with your hands to evenly coat. Bundle all the potatoes in the towel, hold over a bowl or sink, and squeeze the potatoes to drain as much liquid as possible.
Put the dry potatoes into a bowl and add a pinch of onion powder. Toss until evenly distributed.
Heat a 10-12 inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat and add the reserved bacon fat and butter on the bottom of the skillet. Once the bacon fat and butter is hot and bubbling, place your potatoes onto the skillet and press it down evenly to fill out the whole pan in one thick layer.
Cook undisturbed for about 5-7 minutes, or until the underside reaches a nice crisp golden brown, scrape underneath, flip the hash brown on its other side, and cook for another 4-6 minutes undisturbed.
Remove your hash brown from the pan and season lightly with salt while still hot. Serve immediately.
Pancakes:
In a medium-sized bowl, combine all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar, fine sea salt, and whisk together until combined.
Add buttermilk and eggs to the bowl of dry ingredients and whisk together until combined. Once combined, add vegetable oil to mix in as well.
Raise the temperature of a pan to medium heat, and spray the pan with a light coating of oil.
Once the pan is hot, place a small ladle-full of pancake batter onto the pan and spread it out with the ladle. Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until bubbles are forming on the top of the pancake. Flip, and cook for another 2-3 minutes, or until cooked throughout.
Serve with butter and maple syrup.
Fried Eggs:
Pour three tablespoons of vegetable oil, or olive oil, in a medium sized non-stick pan. Heat over medium until very hot.
Crack your eggs, 2 at a time, into the hot oil and let them cook. After a minute, use a large spoon to baste the hot oil onto the uncooked part of the whites of the egg. When the whites are fully cooked and the yolk is still runny, your fried egg is done.
Drain on a paper towel, repeat with the rest and serve.
The Filipino Breakfast:
Tocino:
Slice your pork butt into thin strips.
In a bowl, combine brown sugar, pineapple juice, kosher salt, rice vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, salt to taste. Optionally, add red food coloring. Whisk together until combined.
Add the sliced pork in the marinade, and let it marinate covered and in the refrigerator for 3 days.
In a cold skillet, place 2-3 strips of marinated Tocino. Raise the temperature to medium heat, and keep flipping until the pork has reached the desired brownness and is cooked the way through and you’ve got some light char on it.
Drain on a paper towel and repeat with the rest.
Longganisa:
Add ground pork to a bowl and add kosher salt, paprika, fresh ground pepper, soy sauce (Silver Swan), white distilled vinegar, brown sugar, and 12 grated cloves of garlic. Mix together thoroughly so everything is evenly distributed.
About ½ cup at a time, shape the ground meat inside a sheet of parchment paper to the full width of said parchment paper. Tightly roll up the parchment with the ground meat inside to from a sausage shape. Repeat this process with the remaining meat and chill all paper-wrapped sausages in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.
Remove from freezer and cut each paper-wrapped sausage into three even portions.
Remove sausages from parchment paper and place them on a cold pan. Lift the temperature to medium heat. Cook turning often until browned evenly and cooked through.
Fried Rice:
Add the vegetable oil to a large wok along with ¾ of your garlic. Then begin heating over medium low heat. As it comes up to heat, constantly stir the garlic until it is a light golden brown (2-4 minutes). Reserve remaining raw garlic for finishing.
Strain garlic through a fine-mesh strainer making sure to capture garlic oil in a container. Reserve garlic oil for cooking. Drain fried garlic on a paper towel. Add reserved garlic oil back into the wok and heat over high heat.
Add the rice into the wok and season with salt to taste. Optionally, you could add MSG to taste as well. Stir fry the rice constantly until heated through and a little crispy on the bottom.
Add in reserved 3/4 of fried garlic to the rice, leaving a little bit of the fried garlic behind for garnishing if you’d like. Taste for salt levels, and add remaining raw garlic to the rice and toss until evenly distributed.
Once it is ready to serve, garnish the top of the rice with the leftover fried garlic and optional thinly sliced green onion.
