Eggs

December 30, 2012 Eggs

Eggs Benedict and Heston Blumenthal’s Perfectly Poached Eggs

Hubby is mildy addicted to eggs Benedict – he frequently orders it for working breakfasts, and you can see from some of his comments that he has many, many criteria he applies to the dish. Consequently I’m often reluctant to cook it at home – but hey, it’s Christmas – the man deserves his favourite breakfast at Christmas surely?!

I’ve been working on Thermomix versions of Bearnaise and Hollandaise, made with home-made tarragon vinegar, and a reduction base for both sauces…

I’ve also been obsessing about Heston Blumenthal’s How to Cook Like Heston, and was watching his episode on eggs again. It seemed like the perfect excuse to combine techniques…

There are many variations on eggs Benedict – instead of the ham you can use blanched spinach for eggs Florentine, Eggs Mornay uses a Mornay cheese sauce instead of Hollandaise – you can play around with your favourite combination. Here I’m using Pata Negra, that perfect ham from Spain – made from the blackfooted pig who’s been fed a diet of acorns – amazing stuff!

The freshest possible eggs make the best poached eggs – the white is firmer, less watery, and holds together better in the pan. I had originally preferred Marcus Wareing’s method of poaching eggs, but having tried Heston’s, I think it just has the edge. In his method you drain off the watery bit of the white, before poaching at 80oC for four minutes. Reaching exactly 80oC on an induction hob was perhaps the most challenging aspect of the task – everything else worked exactly as he said…

Ingredients:
2 tsp salt
large eggs, as many as you require
Salt and black pepper

Method:

Fill a saucepan with approximately 15-20cm of water then add the salt. Place a plate upside down in the bottom of the pan then place the pan over a medium heat and bring the water up to 80ºC.

One at a time, crack each egg into a ramekin dish and pour it into a slotted spoon with small holes. Allow to drain any residual white for approximately 1–2 minutes.

Lower the slotted spoon into the warm water and slide the spoon out. Allow to poach for 4 minutes.

Remove with the slotted spoon and place on kitchen paper to drain the excess water. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

It’s important to toast your muffins to some semblance of brown – you need them to form a crisp and tasty base for your eggs, not a soggy waterlogged layer

: Jamon Ibérico di Bellotta, or Pata Negra – no matter what you want to call it, the ham of the Spanish Black-Footed pig, fed on acorns, is silky, pack full of flavour and melt-in-the-mouth texture

: Mid-way through assembly – you can see I have less white than normal – this is because my eggs were a few days old… However the yolks are perfect.

: I’m not massively keen on eggs Benedict, but I’m not going to miss the opportunity to put some of that Bellotta ham under my poached eggs

Eggs Benedict, with Hollandaise sauce

July 2, 2012 Recipe

The Harwood Arms Venison Scotch Egg

I had lunch at the Harwood Arms recently, and arrived late :0) What a marvel – to arrive late and to be presented with a gorgeous Scotch egg within moments of being seated, and having spent nearly an hour in traffic to travel about four miles! It was delicious, spicy, well flavoured and with a soft gorgeous yolk in the centre – yummy!

The Harwood Arms is London’s only Michelin starred pub, and jolly good it is too. The pub is part owned by Mike Robinson of the PotKiln (we’d also had Mike’s venison at the Royal Berkshire Shooting School – excellent produce). Hubby wasn’t with me that day, which is a shame, as he’s much more into Scotch eggs than me – this made me determined to make him some. When I googled ‘venison Scotch egg recipes’ I was delighted to find Mike’s own recipe in The Field magazine!

Ingredients
8 medium hen’s eggs
150g (5oz) venison mince
300g (101⁄2oz) pork sausage meat
Salt and pepper
Herbs
200g (7oz) plain flour
100ml (31⁄2fl oz) milk
3 eggs, beaten
250g (9oz) coarse white breadcrumbs [I used Japanese panko breadcrumbs]
Makes 8 scotch eggs

Start by removing your eggs from the fridge at least an hour before cooking. Cooking from room temperature is the key to getting the yolks just so. Boil the eggs in water for five and a half minutes exactly. If you are at high altitude, this timing may change. Take the eggs out of the water and plunge into iced water to stop them cooking. When cool, peel them carefully and leave the peeled eggs in water. [I definitely overcooked my first batch of eggs, but I was using Clarence Court legbar eggs, which are perhaps a little smaller. On the second batch I cooked an extra egg, whipped it out and cracked it open before removing the others, to double check the state of the yolk. I also found it difficult to peel my eggs as they were so fresh, so I cracked the shells a little, leaving the eggs in the water for a few minutes. Once the cold water seeps around the egg, it’s a lots easier to peel them]

Prepare the sausage meat by mixing the venison and pork together. Season the mix with salt and pepper and any herbs you choose. Form the meat into balls the same size as the eggs.

Flour the eggs. Squidge the balls of sausage meat into flat circles about 5in in diameter and encase each egg in a thin layer of meat. Mix the milk and beaten eggs together, then flour the enrobed eggs again and dip them in the mix before dunking the lot in breadcrumbs.

Repeat the process so the crumb armour is two layers thick. Deep fry the eggs in plain oil at 175°C/347°F for six minutes. They should be deep brown in colour but not burnt. Serve hot and whole with a sprinkling of sea salt on the top. [These timings and temperature worked perfectly for my eggs – the yolk was still runny, but they were definitely warm and heated through]

Do give them a go, they were yummy.

Homemade Scotch eggs…

February 21, 2012 1 Michelin Star

The Lanesborough, Belgravia

Breakfast number two of the week and today the venue is the Lanesborough on Hyde Park Corner. An impressive 19th century building which is now a small, but luxurious hotel, in the heart of London. Originally built as a hospital (St. Georges) in the 18C, it was demolished and rebuilt in 1827 by William Wilkins. The hospital itself transferred to Tooting in 1980, and the building fell into disrepair until 1991 when it was refurbished and re-opened, and now is arguably the most expensive hotel in London.

I’ve been here many times before, though I’ve never stayed overnight, and I’ve certainly enjoyed the hospitality of the restaurants and bars – the library bar is a favourite of mine. On entering the hotel I’n directed to Apsleys, the restaurant. Taken over by Heinz Beck in 2009, it is his first restaurant outside of Italy and was awarded a Michelin star in 2010 (the fastest for a London restaurant at the time).

The last time I was here was for dinner before the refurbishment, then, it was a colonial style greenhouse with pastille coloured 80’s styling, with a very loud piano playing in the centre – we expected to find George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley hiding behind the palms with fake tans and shorts. Now it has the feeling of a light, open, Italian venue, with a Titian-esque artwork as a centrepiece. I assume this is to announce the ‘rebirth’ of the restaurant itself (although for some reason the artwork has go-faster stripes).

The menu is extensive and they even encourage you to be creative and go ‘off menu’. Given my recent disappointment, I know I’m going to go down the Eggs Benedict route again. The orange juice is already in the waiters’ hands, so I accept the invitation and give my order.

I assume the go-faster stripes on the centrepiece give the illusion that orders are being handled much more quickly than they are, and we wait what seems to be an age. All three of us have ordered eggs, so I assume only one egg chef is on, or they are out the back squeezing a couple from the chicken. Finally, the dishes arrive. Again the food looks great, though as I found to my cost yesterday, looks can be deceiving. I look more closely…

Two nicely formed poached eggs on top of an abundance of ham, and one half of a largish muffin. A decent, but not overwhelming amount of hollandaise with a pinch of paprika. My knife glides through the egg revealing a medium cooked egg with a yolk that flows down over the ham and muffin, but is not indiscreet enough to damage the texture of either. The ham is a honey roast ham, organically sourced, and full of flavour; and the muffin is nice and fluffy. The hollandaise, is creamy, but could do with just a touch more acidity – but I feel I’m splitting hairs now.

I enjoy the venue, the eggs Benedict were good. The service, other than waiting for too long, was fine and I leave in good humour – joking with the staff as I leave. One tells me his favourite egg joke:

How do Monsters like their eggs cooked – Terri-fried.

Update:

I had breakfast again this morning, and things have definitely deteriorated since my last visit. Eggs were undercooked, the staff kept trying to sell us pastries every five minutes and I had to ask for juice three times. A glass of grapefruit juice finally arrived, but had been watered down. I also had to ask for a cup of coffee twice, and finally got it at the end of the meal. The bill also had to be requested three times! 17/9/12