His "all-American superhero of a breakfast" raises some questions
EC: Gordon Ramsay's 'American Breakfast' Is Confusing
Credit: Screenshot via YouTube

I wasn't surprised to see that a clip of Gordon Ramsay making eggs baked in hash browns was the top trending video on YouTube this morning. After all, Gordon Ramsay's scrambled eggs recipe is iconic, and the internet loves getting judged by the strict British chef with high standards and a heart of gold. So of course a video of Gordon Ramsay making breakfast went viral. I was, however, surprised that he considers this recipe of eggs baked in hash browns to be an "American-style breakfast." As an American, born and bred, I have never heard of it.

I'm not mad at the dish itself, which he calls "an all-American superhero of a breakfast." But it is shocking, even if it starts with a pretty straightforward crispy hash brown technique. Gordon Ramsay begins by grating waxy potatoes and a whole white onion (without crying, thank you very much) into a bowl, then mixes the shards with olive oil, salt, pepper, and cayenne before squeezing the moisture out. Gordon Ramsay gets a pan nice and hot, adds a couple glugs of olive oil, then plops the potato mixture into it.

All of that is pretty by-the-book, but this is where it starts to get wild. Gordon Ramsay adds pads of butter to the sides of the hash brown patty, in addition to the olive oil that's already there. You see? Wild! And to flip the hash brown, he uses a giant plate instead of a spatula. "Take a plate, place it on top, and just flip it over and slide it back in, very quickly," he explains. You don't need extra utensils in Gordon Ramsay's kitchen!

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Credit: Screenshot via YouTube

Once the hash brown is done cooking, Gordon Ramsay cracks four eggs onto the potato crust and pops the whole thing into the oven, which is fine enough. Where my jaw really dropped when I realized how Gordon Ramsay cooks "American" bacon. He heats up a pan; adds brown sugar, salt, olive oil, and butter into aforementioned hot pan; and then adds the bacon. Whatever happened to letting bacon cook in its own fat? Have all Americans been cooking their bacon in sugar without my knowledge? I am shook.

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Credit: Screenshot via YouTube

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all, however, came when Gordon Ramsay said, "You can see why the best breakfast in the world are always in America." He likes us! He really likes us!

Witness the full American breakfast, according to Gordon Ramsay, in this video:

By Maxine Builder and Maxine Builder