This is a most interesting dish because it totally refutes the claim made by great many people who should know better, that eggs and wine do not go together.
Indisputably there are egg dishes which do not make good marriages with wine; but equally it is true to say that there are certain classic dishes which depend upon wine for their cookery and therefore can stand toe to toe with a better quality wine with the same characteristic.
This is a special one.
Ingredients: - 6 eggs - 1 half liter bottle of a very humble Burgundy - we use a Spanish Burgundy type from the Rioja because otherwise the dish is far too expensive even for a party.
- A pinch of salt - 2 peppercorns - 2 small parsley stalks only - 1 sprig thyme - 1/4 of bay leaf - 1 crushed garlic clove - 3-4 cherry sized pieces of butter rolled into little balls and then rolled very, very thickly in flour - 8 small mushrooms - Six 3 1/2" diameter, 1/2" thick rounds of crust less bread oil in deep fryer Method: 1.
Place wine, salt, peppercorns, parsley, thyme and bay leaf in a very small, thick saucepan; ideally copper.
2.
Add the crushed garlic clove, set over a thread of heat and allow to come to the boil with extreme slowness so that the flavor of herbs etc.
impregnates the wine thoroughly.
3.
When the wine reaches boiling point pour it into a very shallow, thick as possible, frying pan also over a thread of heat and one by one slide in the eggs.
4.
Poach them, basting occasionally with tablespoonful of the strained wine so that the tops become covered with a faint film of their own egg white.
If you allow them to be almost set before you do this, you will get the best results (see note at the end of this recipe on how to keep poached eggs in perfect shape).
5.
While eggs are poaching fry the bread rounds in slightly smoking hot oil in your deep fryer, drain, arrange on heated dish, slide poached eggs on top and keep warm low down in oven at Gas Mark Low or 200ºF while you finish the sauce.
6.
Strain it back into the little saucepan you used at beginning.
Add the mushrooms without their stalks and allow them to poach very gently for 4 minutes.
7.
Remove them and arrange around the croutons on the dish.
8.
Now simmer the wine for 2 minutes, toss in 3 little balls of the blended butter and flour and stir while these dissolve and in so doing thicken your sauce.
9.
If you would prefer the sauce thicker still, add the flour little butter/flour ball and stir again.
10.
Pour all over the mushrooms and around the dish and send to table for serving.
Note: We hoard 3" diameter, 1½"/2" deep tins of the kind in which very small quantities of various pates are sold.
Then when we are ready to poach eggs, we butter their interiors very lightly, half fill a shallow frying pan with hot water and to a 9" diameter pan stir in 1 tablespoon of wine vinegar.
Then we break the required number of eggs into a saucer one at a time stand the little buttered tins in the hot water, slip the eggs inside and leave them to poach very gently over a low heat.
This way, when the eggs are poached, you merely run a small pointed knife around the inside edge of your little Emmet Egg Poachers and life each one out in perfect shape with a metal spatula.
They can be used for everything from plain poached eggs on toast right up to this very special dish.