Shallot and Thyme Eggy Bread with Pepper Compote

Sunday mornings are always much better when you have a loaf of Barbakan bread in your bread bin. The other day Bailey and I were fortunate enough to be in this position, and I just happened to have a cracking recipe from my new Dennis Cotter veggie cookbook just waiting to be tried.

The recipe in question was Shallot and Thyme Eggy Bread accompanied by Rocket and Spiced Pepper Compote. Don't think you can really go wrong when maximising the flavour of your scrumptious Barbakan bread with a load of yummy ingredients such as those.

Indeed, this breakfast did not disappoint - we loved every bite and it went so well with a nice mug of the Turkish coffee we'd bought from Meezan. The Barbakan bread was amazing and we felt all set for one of our normal Sundays of doing nothing.

I do have to say I did find the recipe a little faffy and thought that the addition of cheese to the egg mixture was perhaps a step too far. What with little bits of shallot floating about the place as well as lots of grated cheese, the frying pan did resemble a bomb site by the end and I think the bread would have tasted much better if the cheese had been left out altogether OR, for ultimate indulgent breakfast madness, had been toasted on to the eggy bread after coming out of the pan. Now there's a tasty idea for next time!

Niggles aside, we absolutely loved the Shallot and Thyme Eggy Bread and will definitely be trying it out again with a few tweaks. It also inspired us to make more exciting eggy breads in future so will be keeping our eyes out for any other ideas we could use for our lazy Sunday brekkies.

Recipe: 

For the Pepper Compote:

1 red onion

2 garlic cloves

1 red chilli

1 red pepper

1 tbsp passata

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp Splenda

For the Eggy Bread:

4 shallots

3 eggs

4 tbsp milk

5 springs fresh thyme, leaves only

45g cheddar

6 slices wholemeal bread

3 handfuls rocket, to serve

Start by roasting the red pepper. In recent months I have decided that life is too short to stand around blistering the pepper skins over the stove and have started slicing them in four then whacking them, skin up, under the grill. Seems to work the same to me. Once you've done this, peel the skin off.

Finely chop the onion, garlic and chilli. Heat up a saucepan with some oil, add the onion and fry for around 2 minutes. Add the garlic and chilli and cook for another minute.

Dice the roasted pepper and add to the pan along with the tomato, vinegar and Splenda. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes until it thickens into a nice compote.

Meanwhile, make the eggy bread. Heat up an oiled frying pan and sauté the shallots until soft, then remove from the heat.

Whisk the eggs and milk together in a bowl. Add the cooked shallots, thyme and cheese. You may want to adapt the future as we will in future and not actually add the cheese and then grill it onto the eggy bread at the end. Season the mix with salt and pepper. 

Dip the slices of bread in the egg mixture.

Clean the pan you were using earlier and heat it up again with some oil. I in fact used two pans so all the eggy bread would be ready at once. Add the slices of bread to the pan and allow to cook on each side before flipping.

Once both sides of each slice of eggy bread are nicely cooked and toasty, remove the pan from the heat. If you're doing the cheese at this stage, sprinkle it on and place under the grill until melted. 

Get some lovely plates and put one slice of eggy bread on each plate. Add a little blob of the compote to each slice and top with a bit of rocket.

Repeat the process until all the breads are layered up with compote and rocket. Serve!