The Ulster Fry

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large heavy-bottomed frying pan, 30cm or wider
• •Fish slice or wide spatula
• •Small saucepan for the beans

Instructions

1. 1

   Start the sausages

   Put your largest, heaviest frying pan over a medium heat with a slick of dripping or oil. Lay the sausages in and let them be. They need fifteen to twenty minutes, turned now and then, to go from pale and tight-skinned to burnished and deeply golden, with the fat rendered and the casings blistered in places. Don't prick them. Don't rush them. A sausage cooked slowly is a different thing entirely from one blasted on high heat. You'll know they're ready when they feel firm if you press them gently with a spoon, and the kitchen smells of browned pork and pepper.

   Source the best sausages you can find. A proper butcher's pork sausage with a high meat content repays you here. The fry is only as good as what goes in the pan.
2. 2

   Add the bacon and pudding

   When the sausages are halfway there, push them to one side of the pan and lay the bacon rashers flat in the rendered fat. Two or three minutes a side is usually right. You want the fat turned golden and a little crisp, the meat still yielding. Add the black pudding slices alongside. They need only a couple of minutes on each side: enough for the outside to go dark and crisp while the centre stays soft. Set everything aside on a warm plate, loosely covered. Don't wash the pan. You need all of that flavour.

3. 3

   Fry the breads

   This is where an Ulster fry becomes itself. Add a good knob of butter to the pan. When it foams and the foam subsides, lay the soda farl halves and potato farls cut-side down in the butter and the residual bacon fat. Fry until the undersides are golden and properly crisp, two or three minutes. Turn them and give the other side the same attention. The soda farls should be crunchy on the outside and still soft within. The potato farls should be golden-brown with slightly lacy, crisp edges. Nothing else tastes quite like this. Set them aside with the meat.

   The potato bread is fragile. Use a fish slice and a steady hand. If it breaks, don't worry. It all tastes the same. But a whole, golden farl on the plate is a quietly satisfying sight.
4. 4

   Cook tomatoes and beans

   Place the tomato halves cut-side down in the pan. Let them sit for two minutes until they pick up some colour and soften, then turn them over. While they finish, warm the beans gently in a small saucepan. They don't need anything added. They just need to be hot.

5. 5

   Fry the eggs last

   The eggs go last, always. Add another small knob of butter to the pan. When it foams, crack the eggs in. Keep the heat at medium. Spoon the hot butter over the whites as they set, tilting the pan slightly to pool the butter at the edge. The whites should be just opaque, the yolks still soft and trembling. A little white pepper over the top. Nothing else.

   Crack each egg into a small cup first, then slide it into the pan. It gives you control and keeps the yolk whole. A broken yolk isn't the end of the world, but an intact one running across the plate when you cut into it is one of breakfast's small pleasures.
6. 6

   Assemble and serve

   Warm the plates. This matters more than you think, because a fry on a cold plate is a diminished thing. Lay everything out without fuss: sausages, bacon, and pudding on one side, the fried breads together, eggs where the yolk can run into the soda farl, tomatoes and beans finding their own space. Put the plate in front of someone. Sit down. There are few better feelings than this.

Chef Tips

• •The order of cooking is everything. Sausages first, because they take longest. Bacon and pudding next, in the rendered sausage fat. Breads after that, in the butter and bacon fat. Eggs last, always last, so the yolks are still soft when the plate hits the table. Manage the timing and the fry manages itself.
• •Soda farls and potato farls are the heart of this. If you can't find them locally, they're worth ordering from a good Irish bakery. Substituting toast is technically possible, but it makes a different breakfast entirely. The breads fried in that accumulated fat are what you're really here for.
• •One pan is the tradition and the ideal. Everything cooks in the same fat, layering flavour as you go. If you must use two pans to fit everything, so be it, but the principle holds: the breads go into the fat the meat left behind. That's not a shortcut. That's the recipe.
• •Strong tea, a proper pot of it, is not optional. The tannin cuts through the richness. A fry without tea is only half finished.

Advance Preparation

• •There is no advance preparation for an Ulster fry. It is cooked and eaten in the same half hour. That is part of the point.
• •If you're feeding more than two, have a low oven (around 120C) with a baking tray and some kitchen paper ready to keep the early items warm while you finish the rest.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 710g)