Gammon, Egg & Chips

Ingredients

• 800g potatoes, peeled and cut into chips
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 4 eggs
• 200g peas
• sea salt & black pepper, to season
• 1 tbsp honey
• 20g unsalted butter
• 4 gammon steaks (about 200g each)
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 10g flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• Crusty sourdough toast, to serve
• Dressed leaves, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan)/Gas 7. Pat the chipped potatoes dry on a clean tea towel — water means steam, and steam means soggy chips, not crisp ones. Toss with the vegetable oil and a generous pinch of salt, then spread in a single layer on a baking tray with space between each chip. Crowded chips steam each other; spaced chips crisp.
2. Roast for 30–35 minutes, turning halfway, until deep golden with crackly edges and fluffy middles. You're listening for the sizzle to settle and looking for proper colour, not pale gold.
3. While the chips roast, stir the honey and Dijon together in a small bowl. Pat the gammon steaks dry and grind over plenty of black pepper — the cure brings the salt, so don't add more yet, but pepper sharpens the glaze.
4. Melt the butter in a heavy frying pan over medium-high heat until it foams and smells nutty. Lay the gammon in — two steaks at a time, don't crowd the pan, or they'll release water and braise instead of caramelising. Fry for 2–3 minutes a side until the edges are deep amber and the fat has rendered to gold.
5. In the final minute, brush the steaks generously with the honey-mustard glaze so it bubbles and lacquers the surface. Lift the gammon out to rest, then splash a tablespoon of water into the hot pan and swirl through the sticky glaze and stuck bits — that's your pan sauce, ready to spoon back over the meat.
6. Drop the peas into a small pan of well-salted boiling water for 2–3 minutes until tender and vivid green. Drain, return to the pan with a knob of butter and a pinch of the chopped parsley, and taste — a little salt and pepper now, while they're hot enough to take it.
7. In a separate non-stick pan over medium heat, crack in the eggs and fry for 2–3 minutes for sunny-side up with a wobbling yolk and a lacy, crisp white edge. Season as they finish — flaky salt on the white, never the yolk.
8. Plate up a heap of chips, lay a glazed gammon steak alongside and spoon the pan sauce over, perch a fried egg on top of the gammon, and tumble the buttery peas next to the chips. Scatter with the remaining chopped parsley, finish with a crack of black pepper, and serve straight away while the yolk is still ready to run.