Arzak Eggs with Mushrooms and Polenta

This is a bit fancier than I usually get at breakfast time, but this is a pretty easy dish if you have leftover polenta you’re looking for a use for. The egg technique comes from Juan Mari Arzak, head chef of Spain’s famous Arzak restaurant.

Polenta and Mushrooms:

1 cup uncooked polenta

3 cups water

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

2 tablespoons butter, divided

Crimini mushrooms, chopped

Salt

Bring the water to a simmer in a pot and slowly add the polenta, stirring to incorporate. Add in the salt and rosemary. Turn the heat to low and cook for half an hour, stirring frequently, until the polenta is very thick. Place the polenta into an 8”x8” baking dish lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

Cut the polenta into 4 pieces. Heat a frying pan over medium and add the butter. Add the polenta and cook for about 3 minutes per side.

In a separate pan, melt some butter and add the chopped mushrooms. Mine were in smaller pieces so they only took about 5 minutes total to cook. Salt the mushrooms while they’re cooking to help release their water.

Eggs:

4 eggs

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt

Pepper

1.5 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

Line 4 ramekins with plastic wrap so that there is some overhang. Add a little olive oil, then crack an egg into each piece of plastic. Add a little salt, pepper, and thyme to each egg. Bring the ends of the plastic together to create a bundle. Tie a piece of kitchen twine around each bundle. Tie the other end of the twine to a wooden spoon.

Bring a large pot of water up to a simmer. Add the egg bundles, balancing the wooden spoon on the top of the pot. Let simmer for 4 minutes – you can remove the bundles from water and poke the plastic to check if they’re cooked through.

Serve the mushrooms and eggs on top of the polenta, and grate some parmesan cheese on there for good measure.

Goose Egg Quiche

This week’s theme is local ingredients, so I hit up a store which has nothing but local/organic ingredients in search of emu eggs, which they’ve carried before. I guess it’s not emu egg-laying season, because they were all out, but I settled on goose eggs from Newberry, Pa. and proceeded to fork out as much for 2 of these bad boys as 2 cartons of chicken eggs would cost. Luckily, the always fantastic Iovine Brothers produce also had local ingredients, so I was able to get some local squash, mushrooms, and bok choy to add to the proceedings.

The gruyere is the secret ingredient here – this was the best tasting quiche I’ve ever had and the cheese is the reason why. The goose eggs taste like chicken eggs, so don’t waste the money on them unless you’re looking for a novelty post for your food blog…

Tart Shell (Pate brisée):

6 oz. all purpose flour

1 stick (4 oz.) butter

1 to 2 oz. ice water

¼ teaspoon salt

Add the flour, butter and salt to a food processor and pulse. With the processor running, pour in the water – start with 1 oz. (about 1/8 cup) and go from there until a dough forms.

Remove the dough from the processor, wrap it in wax paper, and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Flour a working surface and roll the dough out into a circle big enough to fit in a 9.5” pan. Butter and flour a 9.5” pie pan, and lay the dough into it. Cut off any excess overhang. Place the dough in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 425°F. Place a piece of tin foil over the dough and weigh down with beans or small stones. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the foil and pie weights, and bake for 5 minutes more.

I forgot to take a picture of the tart shell after blind baking it, so this will have to do

Filling:

2 goose eggs (or 4 chicken eggs)

½ green squash, quartered lengthwise then sliced thin

5 crimini mushrooms, chopped into chunks

1 bunch of bok choy – separate the leaves from the stems, chop the stems into pieces similar sized to the squash, and the leafy bits into a few pieces each

1 clove garlic, diced

2/3 cup heavy cream

1 cup gruyere cheese

Salt and pepper

Cut your veggies, then preheat a 12” pan over medium heat. Add in 1 tablespoon olive oil and add in the mushrooms, squash, and bok choy stems. Season lightly with salt. Sautee over medium for 5 minutes. Add in the garlic and bok choy leaves and cook for 2 minutes longer.

Add the cooked ingredients to a bowl along with the heavy cream and gruyere. Beat your eggs until all the yolks/whites are incorporated and add to the bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

Bake at 425°F for 25 to 30 minutes. Keep an eye on it at around the 20 minute mark – if you notice the top starts to brown, lay a piece of tin foil over the quiche so the top doesn’t get too dark.  

Goose vs. Chicken

Here's what these bad boys look when they're cracked open - yes I did notice the piece of shell/membrane right after taking this picture.

Other filling ingredients

Before cooking

Fresh out of the oven

Baked Huevos Rancheros

For the sake of doing something different, I decided to make baked huevos rancheros, which are traditionally made by frying the eggs. I checked a few different sites with similar recipes, and all had a cooking time of 15 to 20 minutes for the eggs. I took my eggs out of the oven at 15 minutes, and one of the yolks was completely cooked through, and the other was almost to that point. So keep an eye on your eggs! Also of note: the salsa recipe here is slightly spicy, but not overwhelmingly so; feel free to add or remove chilis depending on your heat preferences. I purposefully held back a little since there is a decent amount served with the eggs, and I didn’t want the chilis to be overpowering.

Salsa (yields about 2 cups):

7 small tomatillos (about 8 oz.)

1 15 oz. can fire roasted tomatoes

1 large shallot

2 cloves garlic

3 chipotle chilis in adobo sauce

Salt

Water

Remove the tomatillos from their husks, wash them and halve them. Remove the papery skin from the shallots and halve them as well. Place on a baking sheet along with the garlic (left whole, in its skin), and put under a broiler. Broil everything for a few minutes a side, until it gets some color on each side. Keep an eye on everything, as the garlic will finish faster than the tomatillos and shallots.

Remove the garlic from their husks (they’ll come out very easily after roasting) and add to a blender along with the tomatillos, shallot, fire roasted tomatoes, and chilis. Blend until smooth. Season with salt, and add water if the consistency is too thick. Pulse to incorporate.

Tortillas (makes 8):

1 cup masa harina

¾ cup water

Mix the two ingredients and knead together with your hands, as if you were making bread. Add extra water if the consistency is too dry and crumbly or masa if the dough is wet and sticky. Cut into 8 equal sized pieces. Cover with a towel/plastic wrap.

Take one piece of the dough, and form it into a ball with your hands. Place on a piece of plastic wrap, then place another piece of plastic wrap on top. Use a flat bottomed heavy object (I used an enameled dutch oven), and flatted the dough into a disc about 4 to 5” in diameter.

Preheat a cast iron skillet/griddle to slightly higher than medium. Place the tortilla on the center of the skillet, and cook for 45 seconds a side, until each side starts to brown. Remove, and store in a warm place (I set my toaster oven to 150°F, placed a plate inside and kept my tortillas in there). Repeat process with remaining dough.

To Finish (for 1 serving):  

A few spoonfuls of salsa

2 eggs

salt

Corn tortillas

Cotija cheese

Cilantro, for garnish

Preheat your oven to 400°F. In a ramekin or small dish suitable for an oven, spoon in a layer of salsa. Crack the eggs on top, and salt lightly. Crumble cotija on top, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Garnish with cilantro, and serve with tortillas.

Black Bean Ragout

This is my lightly adapted version of a recipe in the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. What’s great about this recipe is that you can use the beans for any meal of the day. That, and it’s dead simple to make. The chilis, cumin and oregano give these beans a great depth of flavor with a definite nod to Mexican cuisine.

Note that you do not have to soak the beans beforehand, but you can if you want to (it should knock some of the cooking time off. Also, according to a slow-cooker cookbook I have, if you presoak the beans before cooking them in a crockpot, you get more consistent cooking times.  I haven’t tried testing this out to see if it’s true).

For the beans:

1 lb. dried black beans

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, finely diced

1 tbsp cumin

1 teaspoon Mexican oregano

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 teaspoons salt

1 guajillo chili

1 dried chipotle chili

9 cups water, divided

Lime juice

In a dry skillet over medium heat, heat the chilis for about 30 seconds per side, until they are fragrant. Remove the seeds from both and the stem from the guajillo, and break into pieces. Place in a blender along with 1 cup of water and puree. Add the puree to your slow cooker.

Rinse the beans and add to the slow cooker, along with all the other ingredients beside the lime juice. Cook for 3 to 6 hours on high, until tender. Mine took 4 hours to get to the correct amount of tenderness. Stir in the lime juice when the beans are finished cooking.

For the pickled shallots:

2 shallots, chopped

2 tbsp lime juice

Salt

Mix the lime juice, shallots and salt in a small bowl for 15 minutes.

To finish:

Rustic Bread

Garlic Clove

Olive Oil

Egg

Cilantro

Brush a piece of bread with olive oil and rub with a garlic clove. Toast the bread as you see fit.

Meanwhile, poach the egg: heat some water in a medium sauce pot, along with a splash of vinegar. Heat to a simmer, just before the water boils. Create a whirlpool with the water. Crack your egg into a small dish/ramekin, and slide the egg into the middle of the whirlpool. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes and remove with a slotted spoon.

Spoon the beans on your toast, top with the egg, pickled shallots, and cilantro.