Swansea Breakfast

Why can’t I cook normal stuff like everyone else? 

Sigh.

So, three main ingredients, from three different places. Bacon was the easy one (I got Pat LaFrieda bacon via Amazon Fresh). I had to get fresh cockles from HMart (it’s the only place I’ve found that carries cockles!), and canned cockles (for extra cockle meat) and dried laver (it’s seaweed that will need to be rehydrated and then cooked into a pulp) via Amazon.

Yeah, it’s a Welsh dish and none of the ingredients are from Wales. There are NO Welsh restaurants in Chicago, so if I want Welsh food, I’ll have to make it myself. 

I probably didn’t need the canned cockles, since they were so small you could hardly see them. I would like to think they added more flavor. I probably could have used less laverbread so the dish was not as green, but I like laverbread.

Is it authentic? Not entirely, but it’s as close as I can get given the ingredients I was able to get. Oh, well.

• juice from one large lemon
• 1 3-oz pack dried laver, rehydrated
• 3 tblsp olive oil
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 12 fresh cockles
• 1 tblsp vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 4 slices back bacon, chopped
• 1 4-oz can cooked cockle meat, drained
• black pepper

1. Prepare the laverbread. Simmer the rehydrated laver over low heat for 6 hours until it turns into a dark pulp. Combine the laverbread, olive oil, 2 tsp lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste and stir through. Set half aside and keep the other half for another recipe (see Laverbread Cakes and Bacon).
2. Rinse the cockles to wash away any sand or dirt. Bring a cup of water to the boil in a large pan and add a splash of lemon juice. Place the cockles in the pan, and cover. It will only take a couple of minutes for them to cook, and then shells to spring open. Drain and set aside.
3. Heat a large frying pan. Add the vegetable oil and cook the onion for 3-4 minutes. Add the bacon and cook until crisp. Mix in the laverbread and drained canned cockle meat. Heat thoroughly and season with black pepper and lemon juice to taste. Garnish with the fresh cockles.