3.25.2011

One Brunch to Rule Them All

Best Brunch Ever




Oeufs en Cocotte (coddled eggs) with spinach, asparagus, bok choy (fava beans?), fresh spring peas, mushroom (cremini, oyster, hedgehogs), cream, thyme, roasted garlic
w. buttered wheat toast soldiers


Roasted Garlic (to spread on toast as well)



Biscuits (via reading my tea leaves)


Homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam

(Ina, you lied to me! My jam never jammed! I should probably use this recipe next time, since it calls for apples, which have a lot of natural pectin in it, whereas neither strawberries or rhubarb are high in pectin <= (what causes jams to jam and jellies to jell)


Bacon on the side (for the non vegetarians)

Cara cara orange fruit salad garnished with mint syrup
Mimosas
Coffee/Tea/Milk/Juice

So, armed with my trusty moleskine that I jot down ingredients and recipes that I fancy, I can go to the grocery store prepared with a checklist of the ingredients I need for my celebratory spring brunch. The asparagus didn't look that great and were not cheap so I decided to omit that. Didn't see any fava beans offered so I picked up a couple handfuls of spring peas to sprinkle some spring into the coddled eggs. We're not quite into all the good spring produce yet...most of the typical spring stuff is still not local or at its peak yet, but I wanted to shy away from the usual veg I gravitate towards. The rhubarb looked gorgeous, and decided that that would be a way to tart up the sweet strawberry jam that I'm going to make. I saw Ina do it, and it looked easy. Here's to hoping! I'm so excited about the coddled eggs. I've never had them but every picture I've ever seen of them, I've marvelled at how absolutely gorgeous they look with the bright golden yolks and the colorful vegetables juxtaposed against the egg whites and silky cream.



Recipe Inpiration: Saveur Magazine online

Pictures to come.

2 comments:

jia said...

do you poach the eggs? any egg poaching tiPs?

keyi said...

no. so this is how you make them. put a teapot full of water on while you saute the veg. then put them into ramekins, crack an egg into each dish, scatter a few more veg over the top (not covering the yolk), pour some cream in and season the tops of the eggs. Then you put them into a baking dish and pour boiling water up to halfway up the sides of the ramekins and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes (or 12 if you want it to be runny but slightly more set). the eggs come out looking the way they do in my pics. they are gorgeous and still runny on the inside.