A lazy mid-week lunch with no washing-up to speak of. The trick to a one-pan fry-up is to build it in order of who flavours whom: the chorizo first, so its smoky fat is what the potatoes fry in, then the mushrooms and capsicum, then the beans as the bed for the eggs. Finish it in the oven and the eggs bake into the surface with soft, runny yolks ready to break over everything.
Yield and time
- Makes: serves 2 adults and 2 kids
- Hands-on: 30 minutes (plus drying the potatoes ahead)
Ingredients
- 300g potatoes, in 1.5cm dice
- 1 cooking chorizo (about 120g), in 1cm coins
- 200g mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 1 green capsicum, diced
- 2 x 400g tins baked beans
- 6 eggs
- olive oil, salt and pepper
- sriracha, to serve (optional)
You want an ovenproof frying pan or a small cast-iron skillet, it goes from hob to oven for the eggs. Heat the oven to 200°C.
Par-boil the potatoes
Drop the diced potatoes into boiling salted water for 6 minutes, until just tender at the edge of a knife but not falling apart. Drain well and leave them to steam-dry, dry potatoes fry crisp, wet ones go soggy.
This is the one step worth doing ahead. Par-boil the potatoes a few hours before, or even the day before, and leave them spread out, uncovered, to dry properly, the surface goes tacky and that’s exactly what crisps up in the pan. If you do them the day before, keep them in the fridge and let them come back to room temperature before frying.
Build the pan, layer by layer
Put the pan on a medium heat with a splash of oil. In goes the chorizo; cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring, until the coins are crisp at the edges and the fat has run out red and smoky. Scoop the chorizo onto a plate, leaving all that fat behind.
Tip the drained potatoes into the spiced fat, adding a little more oil if the pan looks dry, and fry for 8-10 minutes, turning now and then, until deep golden and crisp. Push them to one side, add the mushrooms and capsicum, and brown those together for 4-5 minutes, until the mushrooms have given up their water and the capsicum has softened.
Stir the chorizo back in, then pour in both tins of baked beans. Warm through for a couple of minutes until everything’s bubbling. Season, carefully, the chorizo is salty already.
Bake the eggs in
Make six wells in the surface with the back of a spoon and crack an egg into each. Slide the pan into the oven for 6-8 minutes, until the whites are just set but the yolks still wobble.
Pull it out and bring the whole pan to the table. Break the yolks and let them run through the beans, with sriracha on the side for anyone who wants a bit of heat.