Oeufs en Meurette

With Christmas cards to write, and presents to buy, and traveling to visit family, I was beginning to worry that I wouldn't have time to do this  month's Daring Cooks challenge. Luckily I found a bit of time yesterday to pull this one off, and I was absolutely thrilled with the result.

Jenn and Jill have challenged The Daring Cooks to learn to perfect the technique of poaching an egg. They chose Eggs Benedict recipe from Alton Brown, Oeufs en Meurette from Cooking with Wine by Anne Willan, and Homemade Sundried Tomato & Pine Nut Seitan Sausages (poached) courtesy of Trudy of Veggie num num.

Alton Brown is, by far, my favorite TV chef, and the next time I do Eggs Benedict I'll go straight to his recipe. But this time I chose to do the more challenging and complex Oeufs en Meurette - a poached egg on a slice of fried baguette, topped with a red wine bacon mushroom sauce.

Source
Cooking with Wine by Anne Willan

Yield
4 eggs, served 2 people for dinner

Equipment

• 2 sautee pans
• Frying pan
• Baking sheet
• Mesh strainer
• Small pot for re-heating eggs

Ingredients

• 4 Eggs
• 1/2 bottle (375 ml) Red wine - something dark and bold like a pinot
• 1 cup Chicken stock - I actually used turkey stock, as I still had a ton left over from Thanksgiving
• 1 tbsp. White vinegar
• 1/2 Large onion, sliced
• 1/2 Carrot, sliced
• 1/2 Celery stalk, sliced
• 1 clove Garlic, smashed
• Bouquet garni - thyme, parsley and bay leaf - the recipe recommended it tied in cheese cloth to keep it separate, but since the sauce is strained anyway, I didn't really see the need for this extra step. Just throw it all in.
• 1/4 tsp. Black peppercorns
• 3 tbsp. Butter, room temperature, separated
• 1/8 lb. Mushrooms, sliced
• 1/8 lb. (about 3 slices) Bacon, diced - I actually missed that step where it says to dice the bacon, but I found it just as easy to crumble it after the slices were cooked.
• 8 Pearl onions, peeled
• For frying, Vegetable oil (I probably used about 1/4 cup, but it depends on the size of your frying pan
• 4 slices Baguette, about 1/4 inch thick. I wasn't paying attention and ended up with a really thin loaf of bread, so I used 8 slices of that, 2 for each egg.
• 2 tbsp. Flour
• To taste, salt and pepper

Directions

In a shallow sautee pan, heat the chicken broth, wine and vinegar together. Make sure that there is a good 3 inches of liquid in the pan, enough to cover the eggs. The purpose of the vinegar is to keep the eggs from spreading out, although I think mine spread out too much anyway. I've also heard that swirling the liquid into a whirlpool works as well, but then you can only do one at a time, so I decided not to.

This is a bit of a waste of dishes, but for me it worked best to crack each egg into a separate small dish before sliding it into the liquid.

Carefully add the eggs into the heated liquid, making sure not to break the yolks.

As you can see, my liquid was a little too shallow and didn't fully cover the eggs. I added a bit more stock and wine to fix it.

Cook until the whites are solidified, but the yolks are still runny, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Not too pretty, but it was my first time poaching, so I guess I could have done worse.

Remove the eggs from the liquid, place them in a bowl with cold water, and set aside.

Add the onions, carrots, celery, garlic, thyme, parsley, bay leaf and peppercorns to the liquid, 

and simmer until reduced to half.

This sauce was honestly one of the greatest things I have ever smelled. All of the herbs and wine and vegetables made it so incredibly aromatic.

While the sauce is reducing, in a separate sautee pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and sautee the mushrooms until they're soft.

Remove the mushrooms with a slotted spoon and set aside. 

Add another tablespoon of butter to the pan and fry the bacon until crispy.

Remove the bacon, set on a paper towel to cool, then crumble. 

While the bacon is cooling, add the pearl onions to the pan and sautee until cooked and slightly browned.

Drain the bacon fat from the pan and add the mushrooms and crumbled bacon back to the pan. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Pre-heat the oven to the lowest setting it goes to, which was 170F for mine. In a frying pan, heat the vegetable oil and fry both sides of the baguette slices until brown. 

Place on a baking sheet and keep warm in the oven.

In a small bowl, blend 1 tablespoon of room-temperature butter with 1 tablespoon of flour to make a paste. After trying a few different utensils, the back of a spoon proved the most effective at this.

Once the wine sauce has sufficiently cooked down to half the original volume, whisk the paste in to thicken it up a bit. 

Using a mesh strainer, strain the wine sauce over the bacon, mushrooms and pearl onions, discarding the sliced onions, carrots, celery and herbs.

Bring to a boil and season with salt and pepper.

Re-heat the eggs by placing them in hot (not boiling) water. It should take about a minute to fully heat them back up without cooking them any further.

Now to assemble. 1 slice of baguette (or 2 slices of the thin loaf I used),

topped with an egg,

and then the meurette sauce

The sauce came out so perfectly sophisticated and complex. The eggs weren't re-heated completely but I didn't mind too much. I wish there was a way to make this using just-poached eggs, but since you need to poach them in the liquid before reducing it, I don't think it's possible. 

Still, this was one dish I was very proud of. John said it tasted like he was eating at an expensive restaurant, which I have to agree with. All the herbs and vegetables that went into the sauce really gave it the flavor and complexity that made it so great. 

Poaching wasn't as hard as I thought, and I managed not to break any yolks. Next time, more liquid or a narrower pan, and hotter water for re-heating the eggs.