My French Food experiment (Part 2): Along with “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”

A VERY French Breakfast:
Oeufs a la Fondue de Fromage (Poached Eggs on Canapes with Cheese Fondue Sauce)

Canapés-Croutons (Plain or Sautéed bread rounds)

Beurre clarifie (clarified Butter)

Oeufs Poches (Poached Eggs)

 

I wanted to do an egg recipe and going in I thought, "eggs, piece of cake, I KNOW how to make eggs". What an idiot. Since my sis and I were young my mom frequently made "dropped eggs on toast" for dinner (sometimes for breakfast too). We loved them. I would eat 3 sometimes and want more. Its basically a poached egg on a piece of toast (Wonder bread back then). I have to admit, it hasn't even been 2 weeks since my last installment…in any event, I saw the recipe "Oufs a la Fondue de Fromage" –Poached eggs on Canapes with Cheese Fondue Sauce—aka FANCY dropped egg on toast. Because I am a "beginner" to French cooking (actually going in I thought I was intermediate, hey, I can make an omlette and a croquet monsieur) I really didn't have a clue as to how to make a couple of the ingredients called for in the recipe. BUT Julia took care of that because there are actually recipes WITHIN the recipe. Now, I am sure those of you that actually went to cooking school would know how to do most of this stuff but not me, I have never made clarified butter in my life and I had no idea how to make it. It is actually ridiculously easy and I can honestly say I will forever have some in my fridge. Within this egg recipe there were 2 recipes. One for poaching an egg and another for the canapés (which there was another recipe for the clarified butter). I was motivated to do as the book told me and instead of poaching the eggs like I usually do I followed Julia's instructions to the "T" and OMG her way is SOOOOO much better. All these years I have been suffering with LAME poached eggs. The eggs were perfectly cooked with a nice heavy firm white with a perfectly runny yolk and you couldn't taste a trace of vinegar! Not to mention how incredibly pretty they were! Her Canapes recipe was fantastic too. Of course, why wouldn't bread toasted in butter be better than toasted dry???

I feel like it took me forever to make but I think it was because I was up against the unknown. I honestly don't think I am going to be able to ever go back to MY dropped eggs on toast. I also now know that using good fresh eggs do make the difference. I had on hand my regular white eggs from the supermarket and I bought organic (blah blah blah) eggs specifically for this purpose. There was a difference. So much so, I now understand why all you people have chickens in your backyard. I promise to NEVER roll my eyes again and I now envy you…

At the very end when I was compiling the dish I realized that yes it was work BUT you could seriously do everything ahead of time and actually serve this masterpiece for guests. SO those of you who will be "brunching" at my place soon you now know whats on the menu.

SO to all you husbands and kids out there that are wondering what you should serve mom for breakfast (in bed, of course) on Sunday…try this!

Mom, if I was in town on Sunday this would be on the menu, but, it looks like you will have to wait a week…

Four recipes and one meal down! What a great way to start the day!

Jusqu'à ce Soir…Until tomorrow…

**I have chosen not to add in the recipes. I honestly don't have time to retype everything and there are so many references to techniques, like folding egg whites in batter, etc. that I think plays such in important role in making these dishes.

PS-OK I KNOW my pictures are really bad…I am working on finding a good camera and taking some classes…