An entertaining brunch

I like the idea of brunch for entertaining, a flexible meal that starts late and lasts as long as you want. This is ideal for stretching your festive meals even further, with an opportunity to treat not only family but friends to a few more seasonal delights.

It can be as casual or formal as you like; a buffet-style meal or a spectacularly dressed table with the best china and cutlery. The food will veer more towards breakfast food than dinner food; omelettes and eggs Benedict rather than roast turkey or rib of beef. Kedgeree, ham and eggs, smoked haddock, corned beef hash, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, all of these are perfect at any time of the day. Steak does not appeal.

Grilled kidneys do, as do devilled kidneys and grilled bacon. Sausages are much easier to deal with when you slip them out of their skins, flatten into patties, and bake in the oven. Under a grill or in a frying pan, they need too much watching and often cook unevenly.

Even simpler than buying, and then dismantling, sausages, is to buy loose sausage meat. The cold meat and cheese platters which feature on the northern European and Scandinavian breakfast table are also good for brunch. Travels in other countries also supply inspiration.

Andalusia is particularly conducive to seductively civilised breakfasts, taken in some elegant hacienda by the bougainvillea tree in a shady courtyard; frosted glass jugs of freshly squeezed orange juice, baskets of fresh breakfast rolls from the nearby village, homemade quince jelly and honey from local bees, together with pots of fresh coffee.

They do breakfasts like this at the lovely Hacienda San Rafael, just off the Carretera NIV, about half way between Seville and Jerez. And we like driving through small towns in North America, off the main highways, and stopping for all-day breakfast there, rather than in one of the ubiquitous roadside chains. We enjoy the hash browns, the eggs ‘over light’ and that curious grape jelly that is always served with the toast.

While some brunch food does require short order cooking skills, it is very simple, and you can rope in willing guests to help. Someone can mix and make the muffins, someone else the kedgeree. Those who want fried eggs might be persuaded to cook their own; that way they can have them sunny-side up, over-light, or over-easy, without troubling host or hostess.

Warm croissants to split and fill with scrambled eggs, made with butter not milk, and plenty of toast will play an important supporting role, together with a plentiful supply of homemade jams and jellies. Baked goods also feature on the brunch table and I have included a muffin recipe and an unusual one for a stuffed savoury bread.

A large scale, all-day breakfast needs more than just comfort food and morning food, and I suggest plenty of fruit, perhaps a fresh compote of seasonal fruit, and a compote of dried fruit, cooked in tea, and enlivened with a few lightly toasted nuts. Thick plain yoghurt will probably accompany those better than cream.

There will be different opinions on what should be drunk with brunch. It is as well to cater for them all, with the usual hot drinks, a jug of fresh orange or grapefruit juice, a jug of Bloody Mary, and some chilled bottles of bubbly. I would also serve a jug of vegetable juice and the juicer attachment on my food-processor makes short work of it.

The first recipe is ideal for brunch or breakfast. Hot-cakes, rather like Scotch pancakes, are very easy to prepare, but make a most impressive offering. Squeeze extra mandarins and make a superior Mimosa with champagne or cava to accompany the hot-cakes. These can also be served as a dessert, perhaps flamed in a little orange liqueur to which you add a dash of brandy.

If you were to make the hot cakes without sugar or orange, you would have something not unlike blini in texture and shape, and certainly they can substitute for the yeasty little pancakes, with all manner of salty savoury toppings.

Smoked salmon and salmon eggs are obvious choices, caviar too if your budget will stretch. Or try a whole range of smoked and pickled fish, as well as smoked meats, if you like them, from the deli counter. Add a bowl of soured cream, some chopped, mild onion, gherkins and lemon wedges, and you have a buffet of appetisers not unlike the Russian custom of zakouski.

You will need to serve plenty to drink; zakouski were invented, I’m sure, to promote the drinking of copious amounts of chilled vodka. Or perhaps it was the other way round.