Breakfast A to Z

Let’s start our tour in China and enjoy Zhaliang (that’s the Z), a Chinese fried dough, crispy youtiao filled with savoury and sweet fillings such as pork floss, ham and chicken.It’s a unique dish often enjoyed for breakfast or as a snack, and it’s truly a treat for all your senses—the salty meat paired with the crispy fried dough and sweet syrup makes this dish truly special.With its incredible multi-ethnic heritage, Malaysia’s food enjoys Indian, Chinese, and Western roots. That includes breakfast, with a colourful plate of nasi lemak, the national dish.

Traditionally wrapped in a banana leaf (breakfast on the move), it’s a mound of rich, sweet coconut rice garnished with a combination of anchovies, cucumbers, roasted peanuts, hard-boiled eggs, and a spicy Malaysian hot sauce, similar to our Habanero HOT Sauce. West to Turkey and an eclectic meal to break their fast – Kahvalti. It offers a quite incredible array of breads, creamy cheeses, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, spicy Turkish sausage, skillet-cooked eggs, and a range of jams, marmalades and honeys. All this washed down with Turkey’s renowned tea or coffee.To the Continental mix of Europe now. In Rome for instance you might wake to fresh juice, great coffee, bacon & eggs, pastries, biscuits, yogurts, cold hams, cheese and fruit.In a Stateside American Diner, you’ll need a guidebook just to order eggs for breakfast.

For fried eggs there’s sunny side up, over easy, over hard. Then there’s scrambled, soft-boiled (how many minutes), hard boiled, and poached. Try Benedict, coddled, scotch, frittata or devilled.

But typically you’ll be greeted by a pile of pancakes, maple syrup running down the side into rashers of seemingly overcooked bacon.Finally, we head south to Mexico, for eggs, beans, and tortillas, that’s Chilaquiles. Essentially, we are looking at breakfast nachos made with fried tortillas cut into triangles, cheese, eggs, and a side of beans, avocados and lots of salsa.

Hope you enjoyed the tour. Now, what’s for lunch?!!

Food so often reflects the very culture of the people we share this amazing world with. From ancient and basic nourishment to modern dining, breakfast has adapted, evolved to meet our changing needs, habits and pressures.

Red or Brown Sauce? – see below.Too many of us live life on the run, so one of these from the car park van is often the daily start, eaten in haste at the wheel or the desk. Pretty good though!!!‘Fusion’ is a key word in foodie talk – that’s fusion not confusion! Here, a little bit of America joins our favourite eggy start to the day.

Crushed avocado (that’s  the A) with Stokes Real Mayonnaise spread on toast with the egg on top – it’s not only quick and tasty, but it’s healthy too. Try adding our Chilli Jam to the avocado to put a little fire in the belly.The Air Fryer now enters stage left and with them our great friend Emily from @whatiateforbreakfast. This is her delicious  breakfast Crumpet Turnover, the recipe and video for which you will find HERE.Healthy, healthy, healthy … but fun. Nordic countries have mastered the open-faced breakfast sandwich.

Spread with all sorts of goodies – soft cheeses, mayonnaise and jams, the breads are loaded with cured fish, cold cuts, cheeses, vegetables, hard-boiled eggs. Add to these, plenty of fresh berries, like cloudberries or lingonberries.Not sure if it’s too late or too early? Make it Brunch o’clock.

Some countries have a more leisurely lifestyle, or are they simply stricter about meals and their relaxed enjoyment. The Croque Monsieur (or in this case Croque Madame – because it has an egg) makes a tasty brunch. Treat yourself this weekend using Chef’s recipe – HERE.

And, of course …

Red, is Stokes Real Tomato Ketchup.

So thick and full of natural flavour, our award-winning ketchup is packed with plump, sweet tomatoes that have ripened beneath the Mediterranean sunshine where a longer growing season maintains the continuity of quality and taste we uncompromisingly need.We gently simmer a massive 200g of these beautiful tomatoes, reduced into every 100g of glorious ketchup.

That’s why our Award-Winning Real Tomato Ketchup is sumptuously thick as you shake it or squeeze it and tastes intensely of naturally delicious tomatoes.

And now we have a squeezable version with 30 % LESS sugar.

… same taste, less waist !

Brown is Stokes Real Brown Sauce.

Each time someone new discovers our exceptional, Real Brown Sauce, they smile like never before. Ours is a truly ‘grownup’ brown sauce. You can smell the exquisite difference the moment you twist off or flip open the lid and dollop or squeeze.It is a lush sauce, rich with extra date purée, sweet with black treacle and heady with a unique blend of Persian spices.

Try adding a dollop or three to your gravy or a casserole that needs a little maturity from dates and Persian spices – it really works.