Deborah Ryan’s Potato and black pudding hash with poached eggs and iPhone hollandaise

Ooof. Don’t I sound pretentious.

I had bargained with my flatmate, that if he cleaned all of the dishes (there are never just a few dishes are there? It’s all or nothing), I would make brunch and coffee that morning. In an effort to use the least number of bowls possible for breakfast, I melted the butter in a pan and transferred it to a small bowl, allowed the saucepan to cool then whisked the egg yolks into a scant amount of butter. All going well.

The catalyst for this dark day was a tweet. A tweet composed by my mother. It was written to her new favourite person (who she also wishes would curse less), Blindboy Boatclub, of the Rubberbandits.

You see, earlier that morning, Blindboy had tweeted a certain video, with the caption “Every so often my brain reminds me of the comic genius of this” .

Now, we had recently reintroduced my mother to Twitter, so that she could see the tweets by the Rubberbandit that we often show her.

We forgot however, to remind her how Twitter works. She replied to this video, thinking it was a DM, with “I admire your brain retention..I listen to your podcast & 2 days later can hear it all over again, maybe I have a leak!”. A gif of Dory followed. I wasn’t aware she knew what a gif was.

As this seemingly was the most ‘mom tweet’ I think she could’ve come up with, I repeatedly rang my sister who was not yet awake to revel in this embarrassment.

Yes, we are mean. I’m not sure when we will grow out of making fun of my mom.

I had just started whisking the melted butter into the egg yolks, when my sister rang. I answered the phone and hastily tucked it between my shoulder and ear, still whisking the yolks.

Unfortunately in the rush, the phone slipped and fell in slow motion into the bowl of butter, toppling it over and hurling the butter in an arc, all over the fridge and floor.

My phone lay drowning in a pool of butter on the counter. I immediately swiped it up, attacked it with paper towels, tore off the phone case and screen protector. I couldn’t even afford to buy a burner phone, let alone a new smartphone.

I did the CPR equivalent for phones and left it in a bed of rice all day. I know it didn’t fall into water but I felt in some way I was protecting it so that it wouldn’t combust in my hands later in the day.

Anyway, I still ate the abandoned hollandaise, there was actually enough butter in it and I wasn’t going to go through the whole fiasco again.

Potato and black pudding hash with poached eggs and iPhone hollandaise

In short: Roast everything in the oven, poach the eggs, make the hollandaise if you accept the risk but also, if you're not bothered to make it, the dish would be fine without it.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Arrange the baby potatoes flat on a baking tray and and mix in the olive oil, cumin, paprika, salt and pepper. Roast for around 15 minutes, before adding the black pudding and broccoli and roast for another 10 minutes. Check to see if the potatoes are done by piercing with a sharp knife, they should be soft.

Meanwhile, boil a pot of water for the poached eggs. Reduce to a simmer and add the red wine vinegar, this will help the eggs coagulate.

For the hollandaise: Melt the butter in a small pan, leave to cool slightly.

Separate one egg and whisk the egg yolk with a tablespoon of cold water in a large bowl.

Discard the egg white.

Slowly, pour the butter onto the egg yolk in a thin stream, whisking all of the time. Do this gradually, making sure the butter is incorporated before adding more. It should be the consistency of honey. If it gets too thick, add a drop of water.

Keep this on the back of the hob to keep warm. If you haven’t dropped your phone in butter at this stage, poach the eggs.

Give the simmering water a swirl to create whirlpool. Cracking the shell carefully on the counter, drop the egg low into the middle of the whirlpool. I like to leave the first egg cook for a minute before adding the second, in a smaller whirlpool.

Cook the eggs for about two minutes. The white should be set and the yolk should be soft. Drain on kitchen paper.

The potatoes and black pudding should be cooked by now. Take them out of the oven and serve onto a plate. Place the eggs on top and spoon some hollandaise over the eggs.