Category: Eggs


Apr
2021

Eggs Hamine

categories: 1970's recipes, Africa, Easter, Eggs, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, World Cooking

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it!  At Maison de la retro foods, we are supplementing our chocolate eggs with some North African Hamine Eggs.  These came to us via Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery.  The book offers two versions of this recipe.  There is the traditional way:

In Egypt there are special shops selling them; there, after the eggs have been cooked for 3 or 4 hours, they are put under the ashes of a fire and left for as long as 8 hours – this makes them as creamy as butter”

– Good Housekeeping World Cookery

Never mind the pyramids and the Sphinx.  Get me over to Egypt pronto for some of those buttery eggs!!!

 

Eggs Hamine – The Recipe

The non-traditional version of these eggs is so easy!

 Put the brown outside skins of some onions into a saucepan of ocld water with the eggs and boil for 2 hours or as long as possible.  The onion skins turn the shells of the eggs and the whites brown.  Shell and halve the eggs and serve hot or cold with lemon wedges, salt, pepper and mixed spices”

I cooked my eggs in the slow cooker for a full 8 hours.

Pre – Water

Hamine Eggs2

4 hours –  One of the eggs cracked during the cooking but did not ooze out like they do when they crack during normal boiling.

Hamine Eggs3

Eight hours!

Hamine Eggs 4

Note, if you decide to make these in your slow cooker, the onion skins will stain your slow cooker brown along with the eggs.  Get ready to soak and scrub to remove it!

Eight hours and fifteen minutes!

Hamine Eggs 6

I sprinkled my egg with some salt and some dukkah and dug in!  It was delicious.  There was a faint taste of something – not exactly onion but slightly savoury to the egg which was different to a normal boiled egg.  I would not say that it was buttery  but the white seemed more delicate than a normal boiled egg.

I was also very surprised to see that the onion skin dye had penetrated not only into the white which became a gorgeous soft caramel colour but also the yolk!  This was startling because it is so strange to have a monochrome egg!

Hamine Eggs 5

These were nice and an interesting experiment but for me, it was a long time to wait for a fancy boiled egg so I will probably not make them again.  If I ever do get to Egypt though, I will be making a breakfast beeline for the Hamine Eggs shops!

Making these eggs might be a  fun thing to do with kids for Easter or for a science project on osmosis.

Happy Easter everyone!

 

Signature2

 


Mar
2021

REPOST – The Margaret Fulton Cookbook – Eggs

categories: Eggs

We can all take a lesson from the French when it comes to cooking eggs.  In France the egg comes into its own, not only as a simple as delicious breakfast food, but as gourmet fare as well

– Margaret Fulton

We can also all take a lesson from modern sensibility in creating an introductory photo for a chapter.

1977 says…Copper pots, geraniums, mushrooms and tomatoes on top of omelettes, more tomatoes, more mushrooms, is that some cheese on the left?  There’s definitely a teapot and some mugs and some eggs.  So busy…

MFCB 1977 Eggs
MFCB 1977 Eggs

The modern response:

MF Eggs

Modern minimalism for the win!

Signature2

  • Comments Off on REPOST – The Margaret Fulton Cookbook – Eggs

Oct
2020

Eggs Gratinée

categories: Eggs

I love eggs and am always happy to find a delicious new egg recipe.  And these Eggs Gratinée could become one of my very favourites.  It is:

  • Quick to prepare
  • Uses basic ingredients
  • Tastes delicious

Which ticks all my boxes for a quick weeknight supper.

Eggs GratineeAnd let’s not forget the absolute joy of cutting open that egg to see it still a little bit runny!!!!

This is like a Welsh Rarebit with Eggs.  If you want to make it even more rarebitty, you can add a splash of Worchestershire sauce and a dollop of mustard into the sauce before grilling

The recipe made a lot more sauce than I needed for my eggs.  Which was fine – it meant that there was leftover sauce to remake this for lunch the following day.  If you are doing this, you can also poach some extra eggs and keep them in the fridge overnight.  Lunch will be ready in less than 10!

A salad is the perfect healthy accompaniment to this.  But if you wanted to have a side of chips to dip into the sauce, I won’t tell anyone!

The Recipe

Print

Eggs Gratinée

Eggs Gratinee
Print Recipe

A delicious light supper or work at home lunch.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 4 eggs
  • 4 slices of sourdough bread
  • Cayenne Pepper (optional)
  • Chopped Chives or Parsley to garnish

For the Mornay Sauce:

  • 30gm butter
  • 30 gm plain flour
  • 300ml milk
  • 80ml Gruyere or Vintage cheddar cheese, grated

Instructions

For the Mornay Sauce:

  • Melt the butter in a saucepan over high heat, and the flour and stir until sandy coloured (2-3 minutes).
  • Gradually add the milk, whisking to remove any lumps.  Bring to the simmer.
  • Remove from the heat and stir through the grated cheese.

 

  • Poach the eggs in simmering water until soft poached (2-3 minutes).
  • Pop the bread into the toaster.
  • Preheat your grill to high
  • Once the toast has popped, rub each slice with the garlic clove.  Place the toast into an ovenproof  dish.  Top with the eggs then spoon the sauce over.
  • Place under the grill until the sauce is golden and bubbly (2-3 minutes, but check frequently)
  • Sprinkle with cayenne pepper and garnish with some herby greenery
  • Serve with a salad.

Notes

Note:  I did not add salt to this dish because I thought there was enough salt in the cheese.  If you want more salt or freshly ground black pepper instead of the cayenne, grind it over at the end where I used the cayenne.

There’s not much more to say for such a simple recipe except

WE ARE FINALLY OUT OF LOCKDOWN TOMORROW!!!! 

 

Shops are opening, restaurants are opening pubs are opening.  I can get a hair cut and my legs waxed.  In a week gyms will open and statewide travel restrictions will lift.  I am both overjoyed and a little nervous.  Now that it’s so close I am a little bit scared about being out the world again….

Wish me luck!

And have a great week.

Signature2

 

  • Comments Off on Eggs Gratinée

Jul
2020

Waste Not – Spaghetti Bolognese Omelette

categories: Eggs, Leftovers, Omelette, Pasta

Towards the end of the second Fridge, Freezer, Pantry week  I used up some Bolognese sauce which had been in the freezer.  The first meal I made from this little batch of Bolognese was a traditional Spag Bol.  Lovely, tasty, delicious spag bol  However, there was still a little sauce and pasta left over so I decided to cook up a dish that had been on my radar for a while now – a Spaghetti Bolognese Omelette!

Spaghetti Bolognese Omelette

This recipe comes from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Love Your Leftovers. This is a very handy book if you are keen to reduce your food waste.

So, as I was making this, delusions of grandeur were flitting through my head.  What if the Spaghetti Bolognese Omelette…or the Spag-Om / Bol was to become the viral fusion food of 2020?   Move over Dominque Ansell and take your cronuts with you! This is the year in which coronavirus and the Spag-Om™ take over the world.  Before you start to mock me, remember that I have been in lockdown pretty much since March.  That’s FOUR months.  As of the coming Wednesday, we cannot even step out of our houses without wearing masks.  No wonder I’m becoming delusional

So is the world ready for the launch of the Spag-Om™?

Spaghetti Bolognese Omelette 2

In a word, no.

This was not very nice.  I feel the same way about the Spag-Om™ as I do about chocolate cheesecake.  Each of the components is lovely, delicious yummy.

On their own.

But mix them together and you open a minor circle of hell.  The Bolognese totally overpowered the omelette.  If I was going to wrap my spaghetti Bolognese in something think I would have preferred a tortilla or other sort of wrap that you could toast until the bread got crunchy…maybe add a bit of garlic butter…happy days! Spaghetti Bolognese Omelette 3

All is not lost though. I think there is something here.  I feel a less meat-heavy sauce than Bolognese may be a better option for the future of the Spag-Om™,  I have some pesto in my freezer.  Maybe next Fridge, Freezer pantry week will see the launch of Spag-Om™2  Electric Booglaoo aka The Pesty Spag-Om™

Stay tuned, stay safe and have a lovely week!

 

  • Comments Off on Waste Not – Spaghetti Bolognese Omelette

Jul
2020

Frizzled Artichokes with Gribiche Sauce

categories: Eggs, France, Vegetables

I have been wanting to make a Gribiche Sauce ever since I first read about it in an old edition of Gourmet Traveller which teamed it with some deep-fried Artichokes.  The other day in the greengrocer I saw some gorgeous artichokes that prompted my memory of this dish.

Frzzled Artichokes1

These looked so beautiful…but first, let’s talk Gribiche.  Gribiche is a French sauce…kind of like a tartare sauce with hard-boiled eggs.  It is really tasty.  I love the way the creaminess of the eggs offset against the sharpness of the vinegar, cornichons and capers.  These are my flavours!!!

And I also adore artichokes, but hardly ever cook them because let’s face it, they are not the most user friendly of veg are they?  Even if they are one of the prettiest!

Via Olivers Market

These were so fun to eat. I can just imagine, after the ‘rona, when we can entertain again, having a row of these down the table with little dishes of gribiche for people to dip into!  But wait!!!  The fun doesn’t stop there.  These are also incredibly fun to make.  Watch the leaves as they fry…

They move!!!!

How cool is that!  Have you ever seen anything like it? Also apologies for the sound of my podcast coming through – I was so excited and wanted to capture these moving leaves that I didn’t have time to turn it off!  And if anyone else out there listens to Kim and Ket Stay Alive – Maybe, Hey!  How are you!  I am a fellow fan!

Frzzled Artichokes2

The recipe for the Gribiche Sauce in Gourmet Traveller is pretty fancy in that it contains both chervil and tarragon, neither of which are currently available, it being the dead of winter here!  Also, I’m not sure if chervil has ever been available in the shops.  I feel it is something you need to grow.  And I used the last of my homegrown tarragon for Meredith Baxter Birney’s Tarragon Chicken.  So, I fried the artichokes according to the Gournet Traveller recipe but I made the Gribiche Sauce using this recipe from the New York Times.    I did have a little dill in the fridge which I added because I thought it might help to give a slightly aniseedy flavour which would have been present with the chervil and tarragon.

Frzzled Artichokes4

The Recipe

Deep Fried Artichokes with Gribiche

Other Ways To Use Gribiche

If you happen to have some Gribiche sauce left over after making this, you can use it up in the following ways:

  • With Asparagus – this seems to be a very popular combination.  I love toast so this recipe caught my eye!
  • And speaking of toast, Australian Gourmet Traveller has a recipe for  grilled cheese with speck and gribiche.  It looks spec(k)tacular!
  • Heston likes it in a salad
  • It goes well with chicken
  • And fish
  • Even beef can take a bit of Gribiche sauce!

So no shortage of options for any leftovers!

That’s me done!  Have a wonderful week everyone!

  • Comments Off on Frizzled Artichokes with Gribiche Sauce