Brunch on Saturday: One pan dishes to relaxing long courses

This time in Saturday Brunch, we're getting simple and cooking a dish in one pot, and relaxing over several courses at the Modern Pantry

This sausage-based dish can be cooked in a single pan

Brunching in...

Skillet baked honey mustard sausages with new potatoes, spinach and roasted cherry tomatoes

Serves 2

A skillet pan / oven proof frying pan – about 8 inches in diameter 
Sourdough bread
4-6 good quality Cumberland sausages
150g pre-cooked new potatoes, halved
3 tbsp Maille honey mustard
300g baby spinach (a large handful)
Cherry tomatoes on the vine
Oil, for frying 
Salted butter, to serve 

Heat the oil in the skillet pan over a medium heat. Add the sausages, and fry for 10-12 minutes until evenly browned. Add the halved new potatoes and fry until they soften and begin to brown. Spoon in the Maille honey mustard and stir to coat the potatoes and sausages.

Take a large handful of baby spinach and add to the pan. Reduce the heat and let the spinach wilt, soaking up the mustard and flavours of the pan. Heat the oven’s grill to a medium heat. In a baking tray, place the cherry tomatoes still on the vine and drizzle with a little olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, then place under the grill for 3-5 minutes until soft and the skin is beginning to blister. Remove from the grill.

Toast a wedge of sourdough and spread lashings of salted butter. Place the tomatoes on the vine on the skillet, season with pepper. Serve on the table from the hot skillet.

This super simple one pan breakfast was created by popular Dalston brunch establishment Jones & Sons for Hellmann’s and Maille using Maille Honey Dijon Mustard.

Brunching out...

The Modern Pantry, Clerkenwell

The seating terrace in St John’s Square at the front of the renovated warehouse

For a little sophistication on a Saturday morning, head to the design centre of the capital for pleasantly fussy dishes and an eclectic mix of cocktails at Clerkenwell’s The Modern Pantry.

Run by Anna Hansen, who also released a cookbook from the café, the menu is at first a little overwhelming with lengthy and detailed descriptions, but steadfast fans will be happy it includes the Pantry’s signature dish, sugar cured New Caledonian prawn omelette with green chilli, spring onion, coriander and smoked chilli sambal. But as a word of warning, make sure you’re hungry in advance, as portions are certainly not to be sneered at.

As a place to take your time – which you will quite literally have to considering the serving sizes – the gorgeous renovated building is a former warehouse. Covering three floors, the worn wooden floors are matched with lots of blue, grey and white with huge windows, while outside are about eight tables on the terrace on St John’s Square.

The Modern Pantry is known for its prawn omelette which features on the brunch and evening menus

To keep food envy at bay, go for the breakfast special which offers two courses and a drink for £18.50 (or add £5 more for bubbles). The special essentially has choices of lighter starter-type dishes of fruit or quinoa pudding, followed by heartier cooked options plus a fresh juice or smoothie for an injection of fresh fruit.

The pastries are chunky, buttery and gourmet and are enough to share, while the fruits, grains and seed dishes are an instagrammer’s dream with multitudes of colours and seeds. The main dishes use organic large free range eggs, with choices of streaky bacon, tea-smoked salmon and creamy yuzu hollandaise and chunky English muffins. The eggs benedict are perfectly presented, while the coconut and cassva waffles with lashings of fruit compote and Greek yoghurt is more than substantial and a welcoming veggie option. Other meat-free dishes are made up of halloumi, tomatoes and vegemite soldiers to accompany soft boiled eggs.

Going a little off-piste and stepping away from traditional brunch dishes are the small plates ranging from sashumi to sheep's ricotta and red onion fritters and a smoked burtta dressed salad, which can also work as starters or as a shared tapas style brunch. If you have got room, there is even a dessert menu alongside ice-cream scoops – or enjoy a liquid desert such as the chilli espresso martini. It is never ending.

The Modern Pantry, 47-48 St John's Square, Clerkenwell EC1V 4JJ; themodernpantry.co.uk; 020 7553 9210