On my first
trips to France, eggs kept showing up in unexpected ways – fried (œufs miroir), atop pizza, grilled cheese
sandwiches (croque-madame), and
hamburger patties (œuf à cheval);
soft-boiled (œufs mollets), in salads
and with smoked salmon under an aspic dome; lightly scrambled (œufs brouillés), graced with shaved
truffle and a surprisingly equal butter to egg ratio; baked (œufs cocotte), with cream and foie gras;
and hard-boiled (œufs durs), nestled
in metal racks on the zinc bar in traditional Parisian cafés, to be cracked on
the counter and enjoyed with a verre de
rouge or café at any time of day.
I met oeufs en meurette for the first
time on a weekend excursion to Burgundy – eggs poached in wine and served in a
thickened Burgundy wine sauce dotted with smoky lardons
and tiny crunchy croutons. Since then, I always order this delicious and
soothing dish whenever I see it in cafés or bistros. It never occurred to me to
make them myself until I saw Hannah Lawrence’s invitation to participate in the
#ThatTranslatorCanCook recipe translation and cooking challenge.
In my home
library, I have four recipes for œufs
en meurette at my disposal, two in
English and two in French. I decided to adapt a recipe from Les recettes Bourguignonnes de tante Margot,
compiled by Geneviève Fromageot.
Interestingly,
neither of the two English-language recipes, by the Anglophone culinary giants
Elizabeth David and Julia Child, include smoked bacon which in my experience of
the dish is one of its defining characteristics. All four of the recipes serve
the poached eggs on toast with the sauce poured over each egg. However, every
time I have had this dish in a restaurant or café, the eggs have been served on
a bed of the sauce, with the sauce taking center stage. The recipe called for lard maigre, which is from the poitrine, or pork belly, a decidedly
unlean (maigre) part of the beast. At
my butcher, I ask for poitrine fumée
and have it either sliced into strips like bacon or ask to have it cut into
dice, for lardons. If you can’t find lardons in the US, you can use cubed
pancetta (not smoked, but a good substitute) or thick-cut bacon cut in short
strips.
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I had never
made a beurre manié, but was game to
try. My mother used to thicken gravy by shaking flour and some of the hot sauce
in a closed jar and then pouring the liquid back into the sauce. She made it
seem easy, yet I always ended up with lumps. However, mixing equal parts of
butter and flour (or corn starch, in my case) together to form a paste and then
whisking it into the sauce was very easy and produced a beautiful silky,
thickened sauce right away.
Many older
French recipes give oven settings as a thermostat
level as well as a temperature setting in Celsius. Fortunately for us, unless
you’re using a vintage French oven, you won’t encounter a thermostat setting. What you should know, however, is that French thermostat is not equivalent to the UK
Gas Mark, or German Stufe scales. In
my recipe translations, I omit the thermostat
settings and include only oven temperatures in Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Mme
Fromageot introduces the recipe saying that “the difficulty of this dish lies
in keeping the eggs soft in a hot sauce. For this reason, it’s not advisable to
make it for more than 6 people (2 eggs per person).” She is absolutely right! I
managed to poach two eggs at a time, and having two saucepans of poaching eggs
might also work if you can manage it. In either case, you’ll most likely have
to keep some warming in the oven. Also, resting the poached eggs on a dish
towel, rather than paper towels, makes it much easier to peel them off and the
roll them into the serving plate.
Since I
prefer my œufs en meurette on the saucier side, I increased the wine in the
recipe from 400 ml to 750 ml. You’re welcome.
Poached Eggs in
Wine Sauce (Œufs en meurette)
Adapted from Les
recettes Bourguignonnes de tante Margot
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
125 g (4 oz) stale bread, cut into
cubes, tossed with olive oil and salt, toasted in oven
1 large onion, sliced (optional)
1 carrot, sliced
1 large white mushroom, sliced
75 g (5 Tbs) butter, divided 30 g
(2 Tbs), 30 g (2 Tbs), 15 g (1 Tbs)
1 Tbs oil
200 g (7 oz) thickly sliced,
smoked bacon, cut into matchstick strips
1 bottle (750 ml) red Burgundy or
Pinot Noir wine
thyme, bay leaf, salt, pepper, and
nutmeg, or bouquet garni *
30 g (2 Tbs) flour or corn starch
2 cloves garlic (optional),
peeled, crushed.
Parsley, a few sprigs, chopped
2 eggs per person
Directions
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Croutons
© K-Rae Nelson's Toast2Taste
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Preheat oven
to 190C/375F. Prepare the croutons. If using the garlic, rub the bread slices
with the crushed, halved and degermed garlic before cutting into small cubes.
Toss with olive oil and sea salt, then toast in the oven until golden. Remove
from oven and decrease temperature to 60C/140F to keep the poached eggs warm.
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Bouquet garni
© K-Rae Nelson's Toast2Taste |
During this
time, prepare the beurre manié with
30 g (2 Tbs) cornstarch and 30 g (2 Tbs) of softened butter. In other words, in
a small bowl, mix the softened butter and cornstarch with a fork or spoon until
it forms a smooth paste.
You can
poach the eggs directly in the simmering wine sauce, which I don’t recommend
because then you have to fish out the rogue bits of cooked egg white, or in a
pot of salted water to which you add a good slug of vinegar after it comes to a
boil. Mme Fromageot suggests un verre,
or a glass of vinegar, which corresponds to the traditional mustard jar which
is about 10 cl, or just under a US ½ cup measure, crack an egg into a small
bowl or glass, swirl the simmering liquid with a spoon, slip the egg into the
swirl and let it cook until the white is almost cooked, approximately one
minute. *** Remove the egg from the liquid with a slotted spoon and place it on
a dishtowel in an oven-safe dish. Put the dish in the oven while you prepare
the other eggs. You can poach up to 3 eggs (ok, 2) at a time.
Incorporate the
beurre manié into the wine using a
wooden soon, let the mixture boil for a few minutes.
[Full disclosure: at this point, Mme Fromageot
instructs us to strain the sauce. If you insist on following your inner Julia
(Child), by all means, go ahead. I happily follow Queen Elizabeth (David) who
managed to write this recipe in 56 words and “strain” was not one of them.]
Whatever
your decision regarding straining, keep the sauce warm over very low heat as
you finish poaching the eggs. Stir in the last tablespoon of butter just before
serving to make the sauce glossy.
To serve, ladle
some sauce into each shallow soup bowl. Place two eggs in each bowl. Ladle more
sauce over and around the eggs. Top with croutons and sprinkle with parsley, if
desired.
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Œufs en meurette
© K-Rae Nelson's Toast2Taste |
* A bouquet garni is a bundle of herbs that
are tied together with string so they may be removed after cooking. You can
also make or purchase bouquets garnis that are made up of loose herbs tied into
a square of muslin, like a tea bag. In France, they are sold in grocery stores.
If you don’t mind herbs in your sauce, you can add them directly and strain
later, as desired.
** The
second time I made this recipe, I used a saucepan since I had increased the
amount of wine used. The skillet is important because the vegetables will brown
quickly (as opposed to steam in the saucepan) and the alcohol will burn off
more effectively. If your skillet is not large enough to hold the wine, brown
the vegetables in the skillet, add most of the wine to cook off the alcohol and
then transfer to a saucepan, add the rest of the wine and continue cooking the
sauce.
*** The
French recipes instruct us to poach the egg for 30 seconds and other recipes
have cooking times of 2-3 minutes which seems excessive. I like to remove the
eggs from the cooking liquid when the white is white and the yolk is still very
soft when it is lifted out of the water. For me, this was between 45 seconds
and one minute.
References
Child, Julia, Bertholle, Louisette, Beck,
Simone (1961). Œufs à la Bourguingnonne [Eggs Poached in Red Wine]. In Mastering the Art of French Cooking. New
York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Norman,
Jill, ed. (1998). Œufs en
Matelote. In South Wind Through the
Kitchen: The Best of Elizabeth David. New York, New York: North Point
Press.
Fromageot, Geneviève C. (1995). Œufs en Meurette. In Les recettes Bourguignonnes de tante Margot.
Rennes, France: Editions Ouest-France.
Tiano, Myrette (1993). Les œufs pochés en
meurette. In Les Grands Classiques de la Cuisine française. Paris,
France: Editions Solar.
