Breakfast after dark
COMFORT COOKING | Morning foods poach places on dinner menus
Comfort food knows neither hour nor season. The chameleon of the kitchen, it can appear as a baguette and Brie in a briefcase, a cold slice of pizza on the morning table, an extra scoop of ice cream on an August evening -- or a nice hot breakfast for dinner, at home or in a restaurant.
Traditional breakfast items are poaching places on high-end menus. When meals migrate from morning to night, there's a solid connection between what chefs crave and what they dish.
(Keith Hale/Sun-Times, Sun-Times Photo Illustration)
Josh Adams is the chef and owner of June, 4450 N. Prospect Rd., in Peoria Heights. For him, breakfast is "the most craveable, comforting food we have ... there's part of us that's drawn back to wanting to eat it at dinner."
At June, Adams cooks a farm-fresh egg in a water bath, so the yolk is jammy. It is served with housemade guanciale (fatty bacon made from the cheek of a pig), deeply earthy coffee-smoked shiitake mushrooms, brioche crisped up in clarified butter and hollandaise (the dish is pictured above).
"It combines everything I like about breakfast," Adams says.
Bruce Sherman serves elegant, seasonal sustenance at North Pond, 2610 N. Cannon. Asked about putting breakfast foods on the dinner table, he gives a seductive list, starting with eggs, "poached, soft-boiled, scrambled with truffles -- eggs are great, versatile ingredients."
That's a key word: ingredients. Sherman continues, incorporating eggs into other breakfast dishes: "savory crepes -- perhaps an egg crepe, burrito style. A flat omelet stuffed with mushrooms. A buckwheat crepe with pheasant, baked or souffled. Pancakes."
Most of this sounds like stuff an amateur could cope with cooking. That's important, especially if you're tired. You don't want to deal with extremes.
Laurent Gras of L20, 2300 N. Lincoln Park West, says it makes sense to cook breakfast for dinner. Breakfast foods are usually simpler, faster and easier to make -- particularly if you are eating late at night.
In his restaurant, Gras serves pork belly with golden egg yolk, Crayola-bright luxury shining on a plate. The indulgence goes more than belly deep. It's breakfast intensified, kind of like wrapping yourself in a thick cashmere blanket and shutting out a chill.
Gras is not hasty to define breakfast -- or put constraints on it.
"Breakfast is very different from country to country," he says. "For me, breakfast is simply an espresso with hot milk and Viennoiserie like brioche or croissant. This is how it is in France and this is what I'm eating every morning. When I traveled in South America it was fish tacos for breakfast. In Asia it is usually fish and rice."
While you likely won't see fish and rice on your cafe's breakfast menu, go to upscale restaurants and you'll find diner fare -- with a twist.
At one sixtyblue, 1400 W. Randolph, chef Michael McDonald serves hash browns with duck fat dust and foie gras. These are not greasy spoon potatoes, but they have that roadside ability to make you lean back and slowly celebrate your existence -- and that of root vegetables.
At home, McDonald is all about eggs.
"I love going to the markets, especially Whole Foods, and shopping the vegetable section. It's inspiring," McDonald says. "Make a vegetable omelet or frittata. If I'm really feeling healthy, then it will be egg whites. If not so healthy, I'll just use the whole egg."
His shopping advice is simple: Go to the store and see what strikes you.
That approach works especially well if you're filling omelets, which will welcome cheese or broccoli rabe as readily as jam.
Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh are the Hearty Boys, caterers with senses of food and joy.
A "huge comfort food fan," Smith enjoys out-of-hours breakfast items on the menu and at home.
"I love breakfast for dinner and I'll mix it up," Smith says. "I made a meatloaf and served it with a fried egg on top. I'll do the same thing with waffles, serve them with a cream-based gravy."
Breakfast is like that. It crosses barriers: night, day; work, home. It's friendly stuff. Maybe that's why we like it so much. It comes with permission to relax.
Grant Achatz of Alinea, 1723 N. Halsted, talks about the "ritual of breakfast," an uncomplicated, stress-free meal.
"There's no pretense involved in it, no artful manipulation, no high-concept breakfast," Achatz says. "It's simply, you wake up, you're hungry, you just slept for eight hours, there's nothing in your stomach and you want to 'start the day right.' "
From Achatz's perspective, there isn't much distance between breakfast items and Alinea's molecular magic.
"They're all things that are easy to manipulate and the flavor profiles lend themselves really well to what we do," Achatz says. "You go get your two pancakes and you dump syrup on them, and right next to it you have a few over-easy eggs and sausage -- and if you're dealing with that on a very basic level, you're dealing with that blending of sweet and savory, which is kind of our hallmark."
Breakfast at Alinea -- now, that would start your day off with a spark. And these days, people need a bit of a buzz.
"Comfort food is needed right now with the economy the way it is," Smith says.
Asked what draws people to breakfast in the darker hours, Sherman says, "There's a notion of comfort in breakfast foods. The reference of having breakfast, whether it's coffee and toast in the confines of your own, warm kitchen ... "
Achatz captures the concept: "Comfort, hey? Oatmeal. Mom cooking you breakfast in the morning. It totally makes sense."
It does. As glorious as an intricate meal may sound, sometimes you just want to relax. After a day of housework, meetings or job-hunting, who needs more complications?
As Gras says, "Breakfast is usually simple food, easy to digest and makes you feel good. Is a nice way to end the day too, no?"
Yes.
Seanan Forbes is a free-lance writer based in New York and London.
| Food item | 2009 | 2008 |
| Eggs (dozen) | $1.88 | $2.39 |
| Whole milk (gallon) | $3.13 | $3.33 |
| White bread (pound) | $1.26 | $1.28 |
| Orange juice (64 ounces) | $2.98 | $3.05 |
| Coffee (26 ounces) | $9.20 | $8.64 |
| Source: Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection | ||