Posts tagged poached egg
The tartine for busy days – Tartine with sauté dandelions, grilled tomatoes, poached egg, olive vinaigrette
Apr 1st
Une tartine pour les jours chargés – Tartine aux pissenlits, tomates grillées et oeuf poché, vinaigrette aux olives
What do you do when you have dandelions in the refrigerator, no time to cook and a huge craving for dandelions? Well, you can make this lovely tartine. I did not feel like having just a plate of sauté dandelions, so tartines are always a great way to combine greens and other vegetables, and top it off with a poached egg.
Ah my beloved dandelions, did you know that the word dandelions came from the French “dent de lion” or “Lion tooth” because of the dented sides of the leaves that look like lion’s teeth? so “dent de lion” became dandelion!
I loved the wild ones, and I used to go pick them up in the field with my parents and eat tons of them when I was still living at home. I think that time of ramasser les pissenlits et les manger (dandelions pick up and eating) is part of my best memories. If I start doing that here, people would think either I am homeless or insane. My neighbor’s garden has tons of dandelions, and I have been staring at them for a while but obviously I don’t see myself going there with a knife and start digging their garden. The farmed dandelions are not as bitter and the leaves are a lot longer, so I prefer from far the wild ones.
I could not find the exact English for word tartine, it is typically French, basically a slice of bread with a bunch of different things on top, or a simple tartine de beurre, which can be a delight if you have great bread and salted butter. Tartine cannot be translated by toast which is mostly made with American style bread (loaves style). So I will leave tartine as being a tartine.
When grilling the tomatoes, do not over-grill them or they’ll get mushy, just one or two minutes each side. The olive vinaigrette adds a final delicious touch to the tartine.
For 3 tartines
- 3 slices of country bread
- 1 bunch dandelion
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 3 tomatoes, sliced
- 3 eggs
- lavender salt
- sea salt and pepper
For the vinaigrette
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbs kalamata olives, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 1 tbs parsley, chopped
- salt and pepper
Preparation
Wash dandelions. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add dandelions and cook for 5-7 minutes until tender. Remove from stove and drain. Let it cool and squeeze with your hands extra water.
Heat olive oil in a pan, add 1 garlic clove, stir well and add dandelions, adjust with salt and pepper, and sauté to coat dandelions with oil and garlic.
In a grill pan, grill tomatoes. Remove from the grill and sprinkle with lavender salt and pepper.
Poach egg in water.
Grill each side of bread and top with dandelions, then add tomatoes, and egg. Add vinaigrette on top.
Don't break the egg! – Poached egg on sauté fava beans, snap peas and aspargus
Oct 21st
Ne casse pas l’oeuf!! – Oeuf poché sur fèves, mange-tout et asperges sautées, balsamic et pecorino
I have had some poached eggs lately at a new little place that used to be a French restaurant called Couleur Café run by French people. It closed down, and opened again under another name, Pizza Nostra run by the same people and now it’s an Italian restaurant, well the menu is more Italian than French. I liked it before when they were serving French cuisine and I like it now serving Italian cuisine. One of my favorite brunch menu item is the poached eggs on asparagus artichokes and eggplants with a side of frisée.
The best poached egg salad I had was in Lyon. Of course, if you ever go to Lyon, you need to order a Salade Lyonnaise at L’Est one of Paul Bocuse‘s four brasseries (one of the most famous French chefs of this century). The four brasseries are comprised of Le Nord, Le Sud, L’Est and L’Ouest (North, South, East and West). That salad is really a masterpiece. Unlike other French cities, where you tend to get very tiny portions on your plate, Lyon is very different in that respect. That salad was enough for four people and so rich that it had probably the amount of calories I consume in three days…but a real delight. Actually, Lyon is my favorite city in France, I prefer Lyon than Paris, it reminds me of San Francisco, a very livable size city, a clean metro, and nicer climate.
So going back to our egg, what do you do when you get a poached egg? Do you break the egg right away or eat the rest of the dish and break the egg at the end? I think I never really changed from when I was 8 years old. I just hate to break the egg and see the yolk dripping by, sometimes I just feel like sticking the whole egg in my mouth, just not to break it.
Ingredients for 2
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup snap peas
- 1 cup fava beans, skin removed
- 4 asparagus, cut in 1 inch pieces
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 1 tsp mixed herbs, chopped (parsley, chives, etc…)
- 4 slices pancetta, diced (optional)
- balsamic vinegar for drizzling
- parmesan or pecorino, shaved
- 1 tbs olive oil
- salt and pepper
Preparation
Heat olive oil in a pan. Add shallots, brown them, then add pancetta, let it cook for a couple of minutes until it gets a little crunchy, then add garlic. Stir for a couple of minutes, then add snap peas and asparagus, salt and pepper. Cover and let it cook at slow heat.
Remove fava beans from the pod. Bring water to a boil in a small pot, then add fava beans. Cook for one minute depending on the size of the beans. Drain, let it cool and remove the skin from the beans.
Add to the snap peas and asparagus mixture.
To poach the eggs: In a medium size pot, bring water to a boil with salt and vinegar. When it started to boil, reduce heat so that it boils very slowly. Break egg in a bowl and slowly bring the bowl on top of the boiling water and pour it very slowly and carefully in the water. Make sure the egg whites don’t get spread out in the water, and bring the white close to the yolk. You can use two spoons to try to “glue” the egg whites all together on top of the yolk. remove the egg carefully and place in cold water to rinse the vinegar and stop the cooking process.
When the vegetables are cooked but not overcooked, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, shave some parmesan on top. Spoon vegetables in serving plates, place one poached egg on top, Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.
