Breakfast and brunch recipes

Sweet or savoury: how different countries eat breakfast

The pancake family alone travels a long way. American buttermilk pancakes are thick and fluffy, French crêpes thin enough to fold, and North African baghrir are cooked on one side only until the top is covered in tiny holes. British crumpets get their holes the same way, from a yeasted batter cooked slowly in rings.

Savoury breakfasts lean on eggs. Shakshuka poaches them in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce, and the Dutch boerenomelet sets them around fried potato, bacon and leek with gouda melted on top. Nigerian akara leaves eggs out altogether and fries whipped black-eyed beans into crisp fritters.

In much of East and Southeast Asia the morning bowl is rice cooked in plenty of liquid until it breaks down. Chinese congee is simmered long and loose until silky, while Vietnamese cháo gà toasts the rice first and cooks it in the broth of a poached chicken.

How to get breakfast ready the night before

Most slow breakfasts split neatly into an evening job and a morning job. Crêpe batter keeps a day in the fridge, and the sauce for shakshuka can be made a day ahead, so the morning is just reheating it and cracking in the eggs. The beans for akara need peeling before they are blended, a job for the evening before.

Yeast doughs are the long hauls. Cinnamon rolls take about three hours from start to finish and croissants most of a day, because the butter is folded into the dough three times and everything has to stay cold. Crumpets freeze well and toast straight from frozen, so a batch made on Sunday covers several weekday breakfasts.

What to cook for a weekend brunch

Brunch is a test of timing more than skill. Eggs Benedict needs toasted muffins, poached eggs and a warm hollandaise ready at the same moment, and a full English breakfast only works if everything goes into the pan in the right order.

For the sweet side of the table, French toast wants thick, slightly stale brioche, chicken and waffles puts maple syrup and hot sauce on the same plate, and a pan of cinnamon rolls can bake while the eggs cook. Put everything on the shared shopping list the evening before, and whoever goes out for bread in the morning can see what else is missing.