Whilst on holiday, we discovered The Crumpet Shop in Seattle. A charming little breakfast joint, it backs onto the famous Pike Place Market, serving up a cornucopia of crumpets (sweet and savoury) to kick-start the day. We tried a few, the stand out being green eggs and ham, a clear nod to the classic Dr. Seuss book.

On returning home, we gave this a go … it’s now one of our go to breakfast dishes.
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Equipment

• 10 inch non-stick frying or omelette pan
• Hand whisk
• Mixing bowl
• Cheese grater
• Two small plates

Ingredients

• 4 crumpets
• 3 large / 4 medium eggs
• 4 slices ham
• 2 vine tomatoes
• 1-2 tbsp pesto sauce
• Handful of spinach leaves
• Smoked applewood cheese
• Pinch of salt
• Butter

The ham can be smoked and unsmoked. Personally I prefer applewood smoked ham. For pesto sauce, we used some wild garlic leaf pesto, it’s easy to make and keeps for a while.

Method

1. Turn on a grill to heat up. Grate some smoked applewood cheese onto a small plate and the vine tomatoes onto a separate small plate.
2. Add the eggs, pesto sauce and pinch of salt to a bowl. Whisk ingredients vigourously, getting plenty of air into the mixture.
3. Add a slice of butter in the omelette pan and warm over medium heat. When the butter is melted, pour in the egg/pesto mixture to cover the pan. Stir the butter into the mixture, sprinkle spinach leaves on top. Cook for 2 minutes.
4. Sprinkle some grated applewood over the mixture, and transfer the omelette pan to the grill. Cook until set into a thin omelette, around 3-5 minutes. Cook the crumpets under the grill as well, or put them in a toaster.
5. Cut the green egg omelette into four pieces. Put a thin slice of butter on each crumpet, serve with a slice of green egg omelette, ham and sliced tomatoes.

Home Smoked Ham

I smoked a gammon joint at home in our Big Green Egg. I lit the coals and when they were glowing, tossed on a Big Green Egg applewood chunk. The joint was cooked at 135°C/275°F to an internal temperature of 65°C/150°F. This gave the cooked ham a lovely, subtle applewood flavour that beats any smoked ham I’ve had from supermarkets.

In the picture above, I didn’t remove the string or the fat layer. In hindsight, I should have removed both to let the smoke cover all of the meat. Also by the time I had the camera ready to take the picture, the smoke had gone … oh well, next time. 🙂

Hints, Tips and Pictures

1. Leftover egg mix can be kept in the fridge for a couple of days for a quick breakfast before work. Beats cereal by a mile.
   
2. This can be done with toasted bread if crumpets aren’t readily available. But the crumpets do make a big difference. Really, they do.
3. I use a 3.5 cm circular pastry ring to cut a circle out of the omelette. It’s the same size as the crumpet and I can cut four circles out of the omelette made in a 10 inch pan. Or you can twirly and chaotic and just rip the omelette into four pieces.
   
4. You can make your own crumpets, I’ll be publishing a recipe for this soon.
5. Using a whisk to beat the eggs and pesto makes it fluffier than when using a fork.