German Farmer's Breakfast (Bauernfrühstück)

This is a common dish for Germans, although in more recent times, it is more often served for lunch, along with a salad of some type. "Bauernfrühstück," * or "Farmer's Breakfast," was a practical way for German farmers to use up leftover potatoes or other vegetables, or even meat, from the previous day's dinner. This of course meant that these ingredients had already been cooked, and so only needed to be reheated a bit, before the eggs were added. The dish became so popular, the ingredients were prepared fresh, instead of using cooked leftovers. You can essentially add just about any vegetables or meat, as there really is not any one recipe, but traditionally, the base should be eggs, potatoes, and ham or bacon. This is simply my version here. In Berlin, they fix a form of the dish, but they have their own name for it, "Hoppelpoppel," and from what I've seen, it is simply bacon or ham, with fried potatoes and eggs, but that doesn't mean some Berliners don't add other vegetables too.  

Ingredients:

6 eggs

4 medium potatoes, sliced or cubed

5 slices of bacon, cut into about 1 inch pieces, or about a quarter pound of diced ham, or something of both

1 medium onion, chopped

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

1 small to medium green or red bell pepper, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

4 to 5 tablespoons of milk
3 tablespoons butter or canola oil, or a mixture of both (in the past, lard or the bacon fat was likely used)
some parsley or chopped chives for sprinkling on top (optional)
preferably a non stick skillet, or a well-seasoned cast iron skillet

If starting with fresh potatoes, cook them, skins on, in some salted boiling water until tender. Let cool a bit, then peel, slice or dice them. Cook the bacon for a few minutes, remove to a dish, then pour off the fat. Add the butter or oil to the pan and the chopped onion, chopped tomatoes, and chopped pepper and cook until the vegetables are softened. Add the potatoes and continue to cook until heated through, or lightly browned, if you prefer. Season with some salt and pepper, and return the bacon to the skillet, mixing it in with the veggies. Combine the milk and eggs and beat until thoroughly mixed. Pour the eggs over the cooked vegetables and meat, cook until the eggs are set. Getting the eggs to totally set can be difficult, so I usually put the almost cooked dish under the broiler for just a few seconds to firm up any runny eggs. Be careful, it only takes a few seconds, and if you have a skillet with a non ovenproof handle, more than a few seconds will likely leave you with a melted or scorched handle. Sprinkle chopped parsley or chopped chives on top, if desired.

* The German noun "Bauer" is pronounced very similar to English "bower," and indeed, it is closely related to "bower." For the history of "bower" and English "boor" (which is the last part of the word "neighbor"), see the Word History of my article at this link:  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2013/06/herbert-hoover-march-toward-reactionary_22.html

This is my own picture.

WORD HISTORY:

Burn-English has two words of this spelling,^ but this is by far the most common. It goes back to Indo European "bhrenu," from the root "bhreu," which had the notion, "well up, boil up." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "brennanan," meaning "to burn," from the notion of "fire welling up." This then produced two verbs in Old English (Anglo-Saxon), "beornan/byrnan," with the meaning "be in the state of burning, be on fire, to burn;" and "bærnan," meaning "to light a fire, to set afire." The "r" and vowel sounds were transposed from the Old Germanic form, which is called, "metathesis," and this also took place in other Germanic languages. The Old English forms then became "birnen" and "bernen," but in the 1100s these became various spellings like, "brennen," "birnen" and "bernen," which eventually merged into modern "burn." The noun was simply derived from the verb "byrnan," initially as "brenne," but then "burn" by the 1500s. The other Germanic languages have: German and Low German Saxon "brennen" (to burn"), Low German also has "brannen," West Frisian "baarne" (to burn, be on fire), Dutch once had single words, but now has compounds like, "inbranden, verbranden," even with other forms of the words, Danish "brænde" (to burn), Norwegian "brenne" (to burn), Icelandic "brenna" (to burn) and Swedish "bränna" (to burn).   

^ The other form, a noun meaning "a stream, a creek," has German "Born," (water)well, spring," as a relative, but neither is used much in more recent times, except in dialect, and also for very high style in German, mainly in writing. Both the English and German forms trace back to the same Indo European source as for "burn," and they are, therefore, related, albeit somewhat distantly.