start with onions, as if you couldn't guess
this serves two hungry people
one onion
2 cloves of garlic
4-5 strips of bacon or some pancetta
some mushrooms
olive oil
mature cheddar cheese
salt / pepper
take one onion, about than 3" across and chop it to small bits maybe a centimeter long and about 2-3 mm across. Slowly cook this in olive oil in a heavy frying pan, with a bit of salt and pepper. This bit is the most important, as what you want to do is cook the onions gently so that they release their sugar and caramelise. When the onions start to soften then add some garlic, about two nice fat cloves, trim the root base off and cut out the bitter beginnings of the shoot, if it has started to turn green at all.
When the onions are nicely going, you can add a slosh of red wine, this will give off a great smell, but make sure that the onions are pretty softened, the idea here is to get the colour and flavour of the wine mixed into the onions.
While this is simmering you can start on the bacon or pancetta if you have any. Depending on how healthy you feel you can either grill the bacon or cut it in to smaller bits and fry it with the bacon. Either is fine, grilled it is crispier and fried makes everything warm and tasty.
You can add some roughly sliced mushrooms now if you want, but make sure that you cook them for long enough to drive out their water and then let the flesh of the mushrooms fry in the fat til it starts to take on some colour.
By now you will be ravenous, you'll have nicely cooked caramelised onions and garlic, some bacon and mushrooms. All you need to do now is grate some cheese and sort out the eggs.
Turn on your grill so that it is warm for when you want to sizzle the cheese, you can put the plates in to heat too. Crack about 3 medium free range eggs into a bowl and beat them with a whisk, you are aiming for the consistency to be smooth, but not frothy. Grate some cheese, nice old salty mature cheddar is perfect. Spread out the things in the frying pan to an even layer and pour on the egg, turn up the heat under the eggs and give the pan a quick swirl to even everything out.
When the eggs have had about 1-2 minutes and you can see them starting too cook, put the cheese in a layer over the top. I like to ensure the whole top of the egg is covered and then put it under the grill. Wait until is is nicely toasted and put half in each plate and pour the coffee.
