FOODIE SPECIAL... Breakfast on a skillet

Breakfast on a skillet



Breakfasts prepared on skillets are your best bet for busy mornings when you crave something exciting and delicious

Busy mornings often mean dashing out of your front door with an empty stomach growling in protest. Or gulping down a boring bowl of milk and cereal. But that needn't always be the case.

We meet Chef Moshe Shek at his Colaba residence where he rustles up shakshouka, a classic, Middle Eastern breakfast and brunch dish.“I make this very often. It's a very simple dish and takes less than 10 minutes to make,“ explains Shek, whose other favourite breakfast item is the English muffin. “I bake these partly in the skillet and partly in the oven and have them with jam,“ he adds.

Shek deftly makes small depressions in a bed of blanched tomatoes, red peppers, garlic and olive oil. He then pours eggs into the holes and voila, it's a perfect fit. Once it's off the stove, we dig into the shakshouka with a slice of homemade multigrain bread. The flavours of the sweet and spicy carrot murabba, zatar and black pepper explode in the mouth. That is the beauty of science, we are told. The skillet, unlike a non stick pan, maintains a high temperature for a long time, thus cooking the whole dish consistently. As it also takes longer to cool down, food stays warm too.

At The Bar Stock Exchange in Lower Parel, executive chef Kshama Prabhu prepares skillet roasted herbed sausage, sweet potato and cheese crepes with roast garlic sabayon. A black sesame crepe is stuffed with chicken sausages, thyme, cheese and slices of sweet potato. She tops it with an intoxicating mix of egg yolks, roasted garlic, apple juice, white wine and salt.

Thanks to his East Indian heritage, Chef Aloysius Dsilva aka Chef Aloo, grew up on skillet fried cutlets, chops and potato chips. Dsilva rates eggs, hash browns, stir fry chicken, bacon and sausages served on skillets as his favourite breakfasts.

Chef Rakhee Vaswani, founder of Palate Culinary Studio and Palate Culinary Academy, calls breakfast skillets a “one pot meal“ and often prepares a Chocolate Nutrition Bowl at home to ensure that her husband and son get their doses of nuts, seeds and fruits. Calling the skillet a “one pan wonder“, Glyston Gracias, Chef Manager at Smoke House Deli says that he loves eating out of a skillet as he's always in a rush.“When you eat out of a skillet, the flavours aren't lost by transferring the dish to another plate. Besides, it spares you the trouble of washing too many dishes,“ he laughs.

Anu Prabhakar

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