Oeufs en Meurette (eggs poached in red wine)

This is my interpretation of a famous French classic and I've voted it my starter of the year. Fitting I think too for The Food Vine's 6th birthday on 1st November just gone.

You might want to try this recipe several times before serving it for a special meal - it's not easy to do and it takes patience and care but if you take into account the following tips your chances of getting it wrong up are fairly slim.

This is a beautiful and elegant dish and a perfect starter for a French styled meal.

Ingredients for 4 servings:

4 very fresh large eggs
500g fresh mushrooms: portobello, swiss brown etc..
1 eschallot, finely chopped
1 small knob of butter
1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon double cream
4 slices of white bread, toasted then cut into a disc about 2 inches in diameter
1 bottle of good red wine
1 x 28g beef or veal stock pot portion and 2 tablespoons water
2 slices of prosciutto

Method:

Cook the eschallots and mushrooms in the butter over a low heat until the mixture is cooked through and all the moisture has evaporated. Add the cream and finely add the parsley. Turn into a small bowl, cover and place in the refrigerator.

Prepare a bowl of ice and water and leave it standing next to the cooker. Pour enough red wine into a very small frying pan (reserve what's left in the bottle). Bring the wine to boiling point then turn it down to the lowest heat setting. Crack one egg into a small cup then slide the egg into the wine. Set the timer for 3 minutes. Baste the egg yolk continually. After 3 minutes remove the egg with a slotted spoon and carefully place the cooked egg into the ice water. Repeat this with the other three eggs. Place the cooked eggs in the ice bath into the refrigerator.

Pour the wine from the frying pan into a medium size saucepan. Add the rest of the wine to the saucepan from the bottle. Bring the wine to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer until reduced by three quarters of its original volume. Add the stock and 2 tablespoons of water. Reduce by half. The sauce should be thick enough to coat. If it isn't whisk in a pinch of xanthan powder until you achieve the desired consistency. Cover and place in the refrigerator.

To plate up:

Toast the bread. Cut out a two inch disc from each slice. Spread a thick quantity of the mushroom mixer over the top of each disc and place the discs in the centre of four serving dishes.

Cook the 2 slices of prosciutto in a little oil until crisp. Drain. Cut each slice into two. Set aside.

Take the eggs from the refrigerator. Very carefully drain off the ice water. Boil the kettle. Carefully fill the bowl with boiling water and leave to stand for 2-3 minutes. Take a slotted spoon and carefully remove each egg, one by one and place on top of the four discs. Heat the sauce in the microwave for 1-2 minutes. Coat each egg with a little sauce. Place a piece of prosciutto across or alongside each egg and garnish with a little parsley or fresh bay leaf. Serve immediately.

Note:  'Continental' produce highly concentrated stock portions called: Stock Pot - they come four to a pack weighing about 28g each. Ideal for this sauce. If these aren't available to you use any other stock but then you will probably most definitely need to thicken the finished sauce with xanthan powder or similar.

Bon Appetit!

it's a wrap!

For a very long time mastering the technique of egg wrapping eluded me. Until that is, my friend, Anne came along – who not only showed me the how to but also gave me the what with. And that is the perfect egg! Simple once you know how.

Essential requirements: several one to two day old eggs, a deep pan, a small cup, a minute timer, two spoons and a lot of courage.

Fill the deep pan with water, heat to simmering point - keep the water at that point. Crack an egg into the small cup, swirl the water clockwise with a spoon, slide the egg into the swirling water AND, very quickly, using two spoons, wrap the flowing whites over the top of the immersed egg. Repeat process with each egg. Put the timer on for 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon.

Believe it when I say this takes quite a bit of skill and quite a few eggs before you get the hang of it. The result is beautiful and the perfect egg should be soft in the centre and ooze gently out of the solid white case. Thank you Anne.

Bon Appetit!

Aspic Eggs with Jamon Iberico

In Oz I buy glace de viande (meat glaze) in jars from David Jones mainly because it's easy and I'm too lazy to make my own. With time on my hands recently and a long way from David Jones I not only wanted to end up with glace de viande but wanted a wobbley (not rubbery) aspic (jelly) in the process. I was determined not to clarify the stock with the aid of egg whites and if it wasn't for the simmer pad on my Lacanche cooker my goose would have been well and truly cooked! So it was with Richard Olney's trusted Simple French Food by my side and a few of my own ideas ready to throw in for good measure I set out on an interesting and successful journey.

Technically, glace de viande is made from a demi glace and demi glace is, more or less, sauce Espagnole. Glace de viande is the result of progressive transferrals of a demi glace to smaller saucepans and continued reduction to the state of a thick syrup and is the consistency of hard rubber. It is one of the sauce-enrichening standbys of classical cuisine. It can be kept, refrigerated, for a very long time. My idea was to by-pass the demi glace and turn the jelly, after using some of it for my aspic eggs, into glace de viande by continual reduction.

Place a rack if you have one in the bottom of your stock pot on which to place the meat and bones and then add the following:

1 veal knuckle (including meaty section) cut in two or three pieces, 2 pig's trotters split in two or 1 calf's foot boiled from a cold water start for 5 minutes, 500g chicken wing-tips, water to cover.

Place the meat and bones onto the rack if using and fill pot with enough water to cover by a good 4 to 5cm. Heat slowly taking about an hour to get to boiling point. Do not start to remove the forming scum until just before boiling when it is very easy to do so. As soon as you skim the first lot of scum off add a glass of cold water to the pot and wait until it almost reaches boiling point again and repeat the process again and again until there is not grey scum visible only a little white froth.

Now add to the pot the following:

1 medium onion stuck with a few cloves, 3 large carrots, peeled, 2 large leeks, cut in 3 - 4 pieces each, 1 stick celery, 1 unpeeled whole garlic bulb and a handful of course salt. Bouquet garni tied in muslin: a few sprigs thyme, 1 bay leaf, few sprigs of parsley

Return the pot to almost boiling point and skim again. Regulate the heat onto the lowest of the low settings and leave the lid ajar. The surface of the stock should be at a murmur - not as cool as true poaching point nor slipping into a full boil. This careful adjustment may take some time until it is precise and consisent. Use an asbestos pad if your cooker is tricky. The stock must be left, undisturbed, for around 9 - 10 hours.

Place a colander over a bowl or another saucepan and line it with several layers of muslin and drain the stock through it. Wash out the muslin and repeat and keep repeating until the stock is completely clear. Cool rapidly, place in the refrigerator overnight, uncovered.

Aspic (jelly) must be as clear as crystal. Remove any traces of fat with a spoon then wipe the surface of the set stock with a piece of muslin that have been boiled and rung out. Put the pot back in the fridge until you are ready to make up the eggs.

600ml of (the jelled) stock melted gently with 3 tablespoons port or sherry, decorative pieces, e.g. leaf of tarragon, half an olive, tiny piece red pepper, 6 very lightly poached eggs: cooled , cut into neat circles and trimmed of excess whites.

Rinse six moulds/ramekins out with cold water. Pour in a tablespoon of stock to just cover the bottom of the mould and add the decorative pieces. Place in refrigerator to set. Add a little more stock, set it, add the eggs but turn them upside down in the moulds so when they are upturned they are the right way up, add a little more stock and set again. Add a slice of ham cut to fit each ramekin, I used jamon Iberico (pata negra) .... as I just happened to have some in the kitchen BECAUSE our good friends from Spain gave us a WHOLE HAM recently - blowing us completely away ........SO I JUST HADE TO USE IT - the most fantastic ham in the world world. Lastly top up the moulds with stock if there is any room left and reset in the refrigerator.

Unmould by running the tip of a knife round the top of each mould, turn upside down and jar against your hand. If they don't budge dip the bottom of the mould in hot water for a brief second then try again. The aspic eggs would be nice served on a bed of small leaves or with a mousse or as I have done, with dressed cucumber rounds.

With my leftover jellied stock every two days I gently reheated it then reduced it for 15 minutes, cooled it rapidly and put it back uncovered in the refrigerator. Now, some time later I have wonderful glace de viande which I am successfully using in other sauces. Voila! I should point that my version is not quite the real thing but it still works and tastes great.

Cep Omlette

There's a restaurant in Aydie in South West France that serves the best omlettes in the whole world. It's slap bang in the middle of the Madiran grape growing region with spellbinding views of the surrounding countryside but unfortunately only from the car park! We go for the omlettes not the view and they are to die for!

Rich, bright yellow eggs streaked to perfection, big strong ceps, home grown garlic and a pinch or two of salt all rolled into a creamy, moving mass of mouthwatering flavours. Served with a plate of pommes frites, a simple green salad, some bread and a pichet of wine - you're in taste bud heaven.

I love to try to evoke the tastes and flavours of Aydie when we're far far away and sometimes when we're quite close too but no matter how often or hard I try mine never taste quite the same - but an oeuf of that. This is how I make them:

It's vital to use eggs from corn fed chickens. If you can't pick your own ceps buy them in tins - this is expensive but well worth it. You could use field mushrooms but then the omlette would end up tasting rather ordinary and you would wonder what this posting was all about. Try to find ceps fresh or tinned for an outstanding flavour.

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

12 large corn fed chicken eggs

400g tinned (drained) or 500g fresh ceps finely sliced

2 garlic cloves creamed with salt

Knob of butter for cooking each omlette

Salt to taste

Parsley to garnish

Method:

Make one very large omlette if you are brave enough or four individual ones. For four omlettes in turn crack 3 eggs into a jug and gently fork them through creating delicate white streaks. Care taken here not to to whisk or beat the eggs too hard allows for a nicer presentation. Add quarter of the creamed garlic and a pinch salt.

Heat the pan then add a knob of butter and pour in the eggs, gently fluff up by drawing the fast cooking eggs away from the sides and into the centre - this puts air into them and helps to prevent sticking. Once the eggs have started to cook around the edges but the centre is still runny add the drained or fresh ceps to one side of the omlette and cook a little longer. Fold the side free of ceps over to cover the cep side and cook another minute or two then quickly slide off onto a hot plate. A wise cook would use Chinese cooking chopsticks instead of a fork to fluff up and to fold. Continue with the next three omlettes. Garnish each omlette with a piece of parsley and serve immediately.