What better way to start your weekend than a late brunch with friends and family… or just as treat yourself dammit, you deserve it! This is a no nonsense, quick recipe, that’s packed with flavour making it the perfect way to start a lazy day… nom!
Our Emmentaler is around 16 months aged. The recipe for this particular cheese has been perfected for over 5 generations so forget other pale imitations, this is the real deal. Specially selected at 5 months to be aged for a further 11, it is full of crystals, with notes of salty umami and sweet hay. It is common for its eyes to be full of salty tears when cut. Emmental is the largest cheese in the world, weighing in at a whopping 75kg. Once upon a time the Swiss put a tax on cheese, but rather than doing it by weight they did it by the piece! Clever producers cottoned on to this fact and produced the largest piece they could! In winter the cheese is much paler due to their being less beta carotene in the cows’ diet.
Emmentaler & onion rostii with crispy bacon and fried egg – serves 4
Ingredients
- 4 medium waxy potatoes (about 650g)
- Olive oil
- 2 Red onions, finely sliced
- 100g Emmental, grated (Gruyere, Comte and Cirone are also great substitutions)
- 200g Free range Smoked bacon, diced
- 4 Medium free range eggs
- 50g Butter
- Fresh chopped chives to serve
- Red Chilli if you’re feeling like a pep up!
We’re really lucky to have our own hens, although not all of them are laying at this time of year there are still enough eggs for lunch!
Tilly loves a chicken cuddle! 
Fresh eggs Rostii bound!
Method
- Cook the potatoes (whole) in a pan of boiling water for about 15mins or until tender, then place them in cold water to cool for 5 minutes. Drain, pat dry with kitchen paper and chill in the freezer for about 15 minutes.
- Heat your oven to 100 degrees (fan). Heat a splosh of olive oil and 30g of butter in a frying pan. Add your onions and gently saute for 25-30 minutes until golden and caramelised.
- Grate the now cooked potatoes into a bowl and season well with sea salt and fresh pepper. Divide into 8 equal rounds. Heat the remaining butter and a splosh of olive oil. Put two of the potato rounds into the frying pan and flatten with a spoon. Top each with a little of the caramelised onion mixture and a little of the grated Emmental. Fry for 4-5 minutes, then top with two more rounds of the potato rounds so the filling is sandwiched in between. Flatten and then flip over and fry for another 4-5 minutes until golden and crisp and the cheese has melted. Pop on a plate and move to the oven to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining potato rounds.
- Clean the frying pan with a wipe of kitchen towel, turn up the heat and fry your bacon until nice crisp and golden brown. Transfer to the same plate with the rostii to keep nice and warm.
- Add a little more oil to your pan and gently fry 4 eggs. Remove the rosti’s and bacon from the oven serving each rostii topped with a fried egg and a spoonful of the crispy bacon. Sprinkle over the chives and a little fresh red chilli for a bit of extra oomph if you need perking up a bit! Enjoy.
