I made you some lunch!

My schedule's been pretty hectic lately. I have 5 classes going on right now, including Capstone, in which I basically have to design a restaurant and put together all the financials, standardize recipes, menus... a lot of typing stuff into Excel and triple checking calculations. Not too difficult, but I made myself a little extra work by choosing recipes that are written in French and Italian, so I have to translate them to English (I'm okay with that) and from metric to U.S. measurements. (Ugh, tedious!)

But so far my instructor loves the concept ("I want opening night reservations"- written in the comments on the description and menus I turned in) so the work's worth it.

Before class today, I really wanted to cook something to get away from the computer for a moment. I also missed blogging (writing is soothing) so I decided to combine the two.

While I was in Lyon, France, I tasted a dish of poached egg in a red wine and shallot sauce, so I decided to make that for lunch. It took me less than 30 minutes to make, even with taking pictures and re-arranging stuff to make it look pretty, so I think anyone could throw this together pretty quickly. It's a simple dish, very classic, but very satisfying.

Start with some shallots.

And a choice sprig of fresh thyme, which I happen to have growing on my porch.

You COULD use butter, but I find duck fat to be... well, insanely delicious.

Manna from heaven, re; bacon. You only need one piece. Try to get the good stuff, applewood smoked, thickly sliced.

Everything you need. (For one serving; just double it for more, it's a simple recipe so amounts should be unnecessary). A spot of red wine, whatever you're drinking will work, one nice, free-range egg, (farm fresh if you can, the market isn't until Thursday so I had to settle) a mushroom cap if you like, some arugula for fun. Just slice the shallots, bacon, and 'shrooms into evenly-sized pieces.

I start my mushrooms in a dry pan over medium-low heat. They tend to have a lot of water, which will bead up on the surface and evaporate.

You don't want too much color on them right now, because you'll cook them a little more later, just get most of the liquid out.

Set your sliced mushrooms off to the side, and toss your bacon in the same pan. No need for oil, the batons will release a lot of fat. I poured some of the excess off part way through crisping so they didn't get soggy.

Almost crisped at this point. I use chopsticks a lot for small amounts like this, because they afford me more control over small pieces. Once they're evenly browned all over, pull the bacon out and set it on a paper towel to absorb the excess fat, and wipe the fat out of the pan with a towel. You could also leave the bacon fat in, but I needed to make room for...

About a tablespoon of otherworldly-scented, creamy duck fat. Or butter. Or bacon fat, do what you please, food's about fun. Try not to get it on the camera buttons like I did, it makes things a bit trickier.

Toss those sliced shallots in there, and a pinch of salt. Be careful, though; the bacon will add some salt when you eventually add it back in. Keep them moving around in the pan, you want them to cook evenly.

Take those shallots to a happy place. Shallots caramelizing in duck fat has to be one of the greatest smells on Earth. Low and slow, baby!

Put your mushrooms in there to mingle with your shallots. They will become fast friends.

Take a drink of wine, then splash some into the pan, just enough to come to the top of your happy shallot/'shroom conglomeration. Throw your sprig of thyme in there. Drink more wine. Turn the heat on the pan up a scootch, you want to reduce the wine, it should be bubbling furiously.

I always, always break my eggs into a separate bowl. If you've ever gotten the bloody egg, you'll understand why. There's nothing worse than plopping a big, ugly pile of blood egg into a bowl of cake mix or your pristine poaching water. Play it safe.

There are many ways to poach an egg, some better than others. I had to poach them to order for a lamb tongue salad when I worked for Mario Batali, so I kind of stuck with the same method I used to use there. Put a little bit of white vinegar into the water, this will help keep the white from dispersing. Using a very fresh egg helps too, you'll see why in a minute. I like it to be just under a boil, get it going then edge the temp down ever so slightly.

I like to get a little whirl pool going in the water, then drop the egg into the center. The swirling action pulls the white around the yolk and keeps everything even. You could also use a ladle to shape it, but I like the free-form approach.

Plop. See the trails of white? My egg was a bit older than I would like. The older an egg gets, the looser and more spread the white gets. With a fresh egg, the protein keeps it tightly bunched and viscous, but this egg white was runny. Grocery store eggs are referred to as "storage eggs", so may be a month old before they even get to the shelf. Like I mentioned before, if you can get farm fresh, it's very worth the extra price. If not, choose free-range, humane eggs, they're still better than the regular, battery-cage versions.

I kept the water swirling for another few seconds, then pinched off the tendrils with the spoon to give the egg a more even appearance. 3 minutes and you should have a perfectly poached egg, if you hit the water temperature right. Practice makes perfect.

Almost ready, you want the wine to be a bit syrupy. You don't need a lot of sauce for this dish, the egg yolk will bring everything together in a minute.

Note the color of the wine in the background, and how it puddles around the solids in the pan. Throw in some butter, for your health. Next time, I'm also going to put a spoon full of spicy Dijon mustard in there, because I am obsessed with that stuff, but that's optional. Throw your crispy bacon in there now too.

I tossed my arugula in a really nice olive oil, and sprinkled everything with some sel gris. (French grey sea salt) Grind some fresh black pepper over the top, and some pepper flake if you're feeling frisky, I used Piment d'Espilette, but only because I love to be decadent like that. Thick, crusty bread is essential for this.

Your egg white should be completely set, and the yolk should be slightly thickened, but runny. Note how it deflates into ooey, gooey eggy goodness here. Smoosh everything together and sop it onto your bread. Revel in the bitter punch of arugula, the unctuousness of the yolky sauce, and the savory flavor of shallots and bacon. You've done well.

Simple, satisfying. As I mentioned, this took very little time to make, so it's a great fast, home-made lunch.

Now I have to get back to standardizing recipes. I just got asked to help out with Hebert Keller's PBS television show again, doing prep work and helping to set up the kitchen. I'm pretty excited, this time I'll actually get to be in some of the episodes! (As a background extra, I'm sure.) Filming/set-up should start on the 25th, so hopefully I can snag some pics from the set, depending on if they let me take photos or not.

Until next time, ciao!