TGIFood

#7: Baked beans on toast, specced up

14 Dec 2024

Beans and bacon. Spek en bone. It’s a logical mix for the breakfast plate. Let’s soup up your childhood baked beans on toast.

Not that there’s anything wrong with simple baked beans on toast just as they are. But even if I have them that way, and I’ve always loved it, I always, always, add butter, and do so generously. Melted butter adds a delicious touch of luxury to this humble breakfast. So do that, if nothing else.

I had “homemade” baked beans at an otherwise very good breakfast spot in the Great Karoo a few weeks ago (I’m being kind; I really liked the place so I didn’t quibble about this when writing about it). But the reference is apposite here. It was a little side bowl of homemade baked beans on a big breakfast plate. And they just did not taste right. Nothing at all like baked beans in tomato sauce out of a tin, a mere disappointing facsimile. It was a rare occasion when you realise that it just makes sense to buy the damned can, open it, heat it up and eat.

But it got me thinking: rather use that can of beans, and add to it, so that you get all of that familiar flavour and texture with an extra few bits and pieces.

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But what should they be? A second can, but of chopped tomatoes? Nope. There’s plenty of tomato in there already. Onion? Oh yes, but it needed to be fried first, not added raw.

Then my mind went to bell peppers/capsicum. Red, because it’s sweeter than yellow or the relative bitterness of green bell peppers, and with this added I realised that we were venturing towards chakalaka. Should I add chilli? I decided to make that optional, and I added a few other optional ideas as well. Use any of them, all of them or n0ne of them, it’s your breakfast.

Not everyone wants garlic for breakfast if you’re facing a day of meeting people, but if you live and work alone, who cares… the cat, maybe.

(Makes 4 slices of toast)

Ingredients

4 rashers of back or streaky bacon

1 small red onion, sliced

½ a ripe red pepper, diced

2 Tbsp butter

400g baked beans in tomato sauce

Salt

Black pepper

Parsley, chopped

Optional: chopped chives, finely chopped garlic, ½ tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds, ½ tsp mustard powder

4 large slices of ciabatta, toasted, or other bread of your choice

Method

Fry the bacon rashers as you like them, then dice into tiny bits. Reserve.

Fry the onion slices until soft and taking on a bit of colour. Reserve.

Fry the diced red pepper and cook for 3 minutes or so. Reserve.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the baked beans. If adding any of the additional ingredients, stir them in now. Season with salt and black pepper. Heat through on a lowish heat.

Add the fried bacon, onion and peppers, reserving a little of each for garnish.

Heat through and serve on toasted ciabatta, garnished with the remaining bits of bacon, a few slivers of red onion, a sprinkling of diced red pepper and chopped parsley. DM

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Writer 2023, jointly with TGIFood columnist Anna Trapido. Order his book, foodSTUFF, here

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed on a salmon plate by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.

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