Happy to be in salad season again
Poached eggs with fresh salad from the garden
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Shopping: none
You can always tell fresh eggs. When you slide them into your poaching water, they remain in neat little bundles. They don’t spread out all over the bottom of the pan. These eggs were very fresh.
I poach them in a skillet filled with water and a generous splash of white vinegar. They don’t take more than a few minutes to cook in simmering water. Remove them with a slotted spoon.
While the water was heating for the eggs, I made a quick trip to the garden with a pair of scissors and came back in no time with a bowl full of salad greens, mizuna, mustard greens, arugula. Just toss with your favorite vinaigrette.
I love how easily this breakfast comes together, and the way it looks on the plate. Nothing could be more fresh and invigorating first thing in the morning.
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House.
“You can always tell fresh eggs. When you slide them into your poaching water, they remain in neat little bundles. They don’t spread out all over the bottom of the pan.”
Yes! Probably why poaching has gone out of fashion. But now that farm-fresh is back in style, I’m sure poaching will come back, too. Besides, fresh eggs TASTE so much better, too, there’s no need to enhance them by frying in butter. With the best, freshest ingredients, the simpler the better.
Chef, that’s a new one on me–sauteeing poached eggs in butter. It’s no guarantee that buying “farm fresh” eggs will be the absolute freshest. Even the eggs you get from you local farmer have sometimes been stored in the fridge from one week to the next. The only guarantee is to raise your own chickens. Also, I’ve found that “free range” doesn’t always translate, as sometimes the chickens are left outside in an enclosure long after they’ve foraged everything around them. It always pays to kow exactly where your eggs are coming from. And don’t be afraid to ask how old they are.
No, I didn’t mean sauteeing the poached ones in butter … I meant poaching as an alternative to frying or scrambling in butter.
I’m not allowed chickens under PG County zoning, unfortunately. Wish we could change that, but haven’t made a campaign of it. Yet.