Thursday, February 12, 2009

pizza breakfast of champignons


Breakfast is one my favourite meals of the day but lately I've been getting quite bored with just the old standby: cereal, oatmeal or fried eggs. I was thinking what to make for breakfast one morning this week when I was inspired by a leftover tortilla I spotted lingering in my refrigerator.

At first, a traditional pizza came to mind...with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese and some mushrooms. Simple enough, right? Well, I also felt that I needed something more breakfast-y to add to this dish. Something with a bit more protein other than just cheese. So I decided an egg would satisfy my quest .

I should also mention that the progression of this dish came to me as a flashback to a Jamie Oliver cooking episode where he made an authentic Italian pizza and cracked and egg (or two) onto the pizza, added some cheese, anchovies and capers called it a meal. Jamie's pizza seemed like an incredibly easy and tasty twist on traditional Western style pizza. I bet if smell-o-vision was available through my laptop, it would have smelled great too.

So that is basically what set the wheels in motion for me to make this "breakfast tortilla pizza".

Putting this dish together was very easy. The cheese was grated first and a well was formed in the middle of the "pizza" with the cheese, so that it would contain the raw egg without allowing it to run all over the place.

After this, it was just a matter of what kind of extras to add. I love mushrooms, so I knew they had to be present in this dish. Some spring onions were also added for a bit of colour and a flavour boost. And of course salt and pepper to taste.

Since I had the oven preheated, the "pizza" was ready in less than 15 minutes. The cheese had melted and the egg had firmed up. (No runny yolks for me, but feel free to bake your pizza for less time, if you like the runny yolk effect. Likewise, if you are bold and can handle anchovies at 9 a.m. then be my guest and add them to this dish as well.) The tortilla (my favourite part) was toasted and crispy and had developed a cracker-like crunch.

In the end, this pizza addressed all of my breakfast needs and gave me just the right amount of energy to tie me over until lunch. A perfect pizza breakfast of champignons and champions!

4 comments:

  1. Creative, beautiful, and unquestionably tasty. What more can you ask?? I'm so happy to see you've gotten into food blogging!

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  2. Thanks Laurie! The challenge lays in the photographing of food. I'm more inclined to start eating than searching for the camera :)

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  3. i LOVE breakfast pizzas, so good. and plus, anything on a baked tortilla is wonderful...i too love the crispy, cracker-like texture.

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  4. I totally agree with you kickpleat! This is a keeper :)

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