Stuff In The Thing

Hi, this is hannibalaesthetic’s son, Darcy. (My personal Tumblr is venndigo, if you want to see me there.)

I’m going to be guest starring on this blog every once in a while for this project, because - hey, you can’t talk about the aesthetic on Hannibal without getting into the food. Basically, every once in a while I’m going to pick out one of the dishes Hannibal cooks, figure out what’s in it, and make it myself (with legal ingredients!)

So, we’re starting off with Aperitif; specifically, Hannibal’s protein scramble that he brings Will for breakfast in the motel in Minnesota.

It’s a pretty simple dish from the looks of it, which isn’t surprising considering that Hannibal’s cooking this away from his own kitchen. It makes it a lot easier to replicate, though, which is why I picked it for my first attempt.

Fresh ingredients! As can be seen in the picture, we’ve got scrambled eggs (I estimated three average sized eggs for one serving, based on the size of the bowl, which ended up being right), Italian parsley, a fresh tomato off the vine, and onion for flavor in the eggs. (Not pictured: minced garlic, because everything is better with garlic.)

And the sausage, of course. Schneider’s Country Naturals breakfast sausage was used, since it looks about the same size as what’s in the pictures. I used two, you can use more if you like your breakfast meatier.

The sausages take a while to cook, so I started those off first, then set to work browning the onions and garlic for the eggs. I browned them in a bit of extra-virgin olive oil on low heat. You could use butter if you prefer the taste.

Then the onions and garlic were burned and had to be re-done, I gave up on work-in-progress pictures, and we started on the eggs. Whisk the eggs together in a bowl with salt to taste (and pepper if you like: I don’t) and dump those in the pan with the onions and garlic. Immediately start stirring them around and breaking up the bigger chunks as they start to solidify, and cook until they’re cooked all the way through, basically. It’s really simple scrambled eggs, so I honestly can’t give much advice on that other than to scramble them how you’d normally scramble eggs. (You can go all fancy and do it the Gordon Ramsay way if that’s your kind of thing, but it won’t turn out looking like Hannibal’s cooking.)

Tear off a bit of parsley and wash it (I used maybe ten leaves?), cut the sausages into thirds, then take the tomato and cut it into wedges like how you’d cut apple slices. You’ll want to end up with two eighths of a tomato.

Plate it up and you’re ready to serve it. Put it in a bowl like this if you have one for extra authenticity. (This is, in fact, the same fancy ceramic Tupperware as Hannibal has. You can buy it at Sears.)