By AOIFE MCELWAIN
JULES’S BREAKFAST BURGER
(serves four lucky motherf**kers)
THE MOVIE
Quentin Tarantino’s classic Pulp Fiction has wooed (and confused) millions with its baffling non-linear storyline and bad-ass characters.
THE SCENE
Mob henchmen Jules (Samuel L Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) walk uninvited into an apartment, interrupting the breakfast of the three unlucky souls clearly in over their heads. As the three fidgit and wonder how they’re going to survive the situation, Jules notices their breakfast – hamburgers from Big Kahuna Burger. Seeing as he “can’t usually eat ’em cause my girlfriend’s a vegetarian”, Jules tucks in with relish before he and Vincent strike down their prey with great vengeance.
THE FOOD
While the presence of hamburgers for breakfast may or may not have prompted Jules’s furious anger, the ingredients of a fry-up work remarkably well in a hamburger. This week, chomp down on The Breakfast Burger as you re-watch Tarantino’s 1994 masterpiece.
INGREDIENTS
olive oil
4 good-quality beef burgers from your favourite local butcher (we got ours in Ennis Butchers in Rialto, Dublin 8)
4 grilled rashers of streaky smoked bacon
4 thin slices of good-quality black pudding
4 free-range eggs
4 breakfast muffins or soft white rolls
Tomato relish
METHOD
Heat a large frying pan over a high heat. Drizzle with olive oil and cook the burgers. Fry for three minutes on one side, then turn down the heat and cook for a further five minutes. Flip them and do the same on the other side.
Meanwhile, fry the bacon and black pudding in a smaller frying pan with a little olive oil. Cook for four to five minutes on each side, until the bacon is nicely browned and the black pudding is sizzling. Remove everything from the pan, cut the bacon in half and set aside on kitchen paper towel to absorb some of the excess fat.
Once the burgers are cooked through, remove them from the frying pan and place in a hot oven to keep warm.
Meanwhile, toast your breakfast muffins or white rolls. In the frying pan you used to cook the bacon, gently fry your eggs until cooked to your liking.
Now you can start assembling your burgers. Put the burger on top of one half of the toasted muffin and pile it high with the fried egg, bacon and black pudding slices. Top with a generous dollop of tomato relish and the other half of the toasted breakfast muffin. Enjoy this most indulgent of hamburgers with a crisp green salad on the side, to minimise some of the guilt. As Jules himself said . . .
“Mmmm-mmmm. That is a tasty burger.”
Aoife McElwain is a film fan and food writer. Her blog can be found at icanhascook.wordpress.com
