Breakfast Puff Pastry Braid with Eggs, Sausage and Cheese: Football Foodie Quick Hit

Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day are the last two big NFL brunch days here on the West Coast. Throw in a few random early bowl games on January 2 plus the extra relatives you’ve got hanging around the next couple of weeks and you’re going to need an fast and easy — not to mention hangover approved — breakfast.

In this particular puff pastry braid, I used chorizo, chipotle peppers, sharp cheddar and scallions, but you can make these with Swiss cheese and sauteed mushrooms; Italian sausage, mozzarella, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes; or country ham, potatoes and cheese. Basically if you can put it in an omelette, you can put it in puff pastry.

Puff Pastry Braid with Eggs, Sausage and Cheese

You will need:

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
7 eggs, divided
1/2 pound of chorizo, cooked and chopped (about 2-3 links of sausage)
2-3 chipotle peppers in adobe sauce, minced
4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
2-3 scallions, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
dash of salt and pepper

Yields 1 braid, you can easily double this if you have a large group to feed.

If you’re the type of person who likes to put cream and milk in your scrambled eggs, then go for it. If you’re the type of person who also likes to put a tablespoon of flour in your scrambled eggs to make them fluffier, do that too. Sometimes I do those things, sometimes I don’t.

Preheat the oven to 400º.

Cook and chop the chorizo, shred the cheese, mince the chipotles, chop the scallions. In a large bowl, beat together six eggs and add milk or flour desired.

(Ignore the technology in the corner, as I was trying to switch up my fantasy football team as I cooked. Also ignore the Boursin cheese in the other corner. It was being brought up to room temperature for a recipe you will see at a later date.)

Now, this next part is also up to personal preference. You want really fluffy eggs, make the scrambled eggs separately in the butter and then layer eggs, sausage, cheese, chipotle peppers and scallions on the puff pastry.

If you’re like me and you want everything together in a big mess no matter what it looks like, follow these steps.

In a large skillet, melt the butter of medium heat and add in the chopped chorizo.

Once the pan is warm enough, toss in everything but the puff pastry. Stir constantly until the eggs are melted and the cheese is scrambled. Or the other way around. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside.

On a piece of parchment paper the size of your baking sheet, roll out the puff pastry into a rectangle.

Pile the egg, sausage, cheese and pepper mixture down the center of the pastry longways, leaving a couple of inches at each end.

On both long sides of the pastry, make slices going towards the center every inch to inch and a half. (Sorry I didn’t get a picture of it.)

Fold the ends over the egg mixture and then fold the pastry sections over like a braid until you reach the other end. Don’t worry if one end looks all wonky. Once you bake it and slice the pastry, no one will notice.

Beat the remaining egg and brush over the top of the pastry braid.

Bake at 400º for about 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Once done, let rest for a couple of minutes to firm up the braid so it doesn’t fall apart on you when slicing.

Cut into 1 1/2 to 2 inch slices and serve.

The flaky pastry, the creamy eggs and cheese play perfectly against the spicy chipotle peppers and chorizo. It’s hearty, filling and just what you want for a morning game, especially when the 10 am games start on New Year’s Day. Week 17 football traditionally has been a joke, but the last few years we’ve seen some great match-ups with real playoff implications. (Parity!) Giants-Cowboys, Bengals-Ravens, Jets-Dolphins, Green Bay-Detroit; those games are going to matter, and you’re going to need the fuel to get your butt out of bed and watch them no matter how late you were out the night before.

Don’t forget to submit your guacamole recipes for the first annual Football Foodie Super Bowl Guacamole Week!