On my return home I decided that I fancied something suitably filling and rich so I decided to make Poached Eggs Florentine for my lunch. The first step was to make a helping of Bechamel Sauce by putting a diced garlic clove and a diced onion in a milk saucepan with 450 millelitres of milk, half a teaspoon of grated nutmeg, the leaves from a sprig of time and a bay leaf.
I let the contents of the pan simmer slowly whilst I melted fifty five grams of margarine in a larger saucepan, once the margarine had melted I added fifty five grams of plain flour and stirred the flour into the melted margarine until it turned into a moist ball that was deep gold in colour.
I then turned my attention back to the pan with the milk in and discarded the bay leaf as although it adds to the flavour of the dish it is unwise to eat it. I gradually added the milk, nutmeg, diced onion and garlic and thyme to the pan with the margarine and flour so that the milk mixture combined with the ball of margarine and flour without making the mixture lumpy. Some recipes for this part of the dish advocate removing the thyme onion and garlic at this point and throwing them away but I find retaining them adds more taste to the dish and is less of a waste of food. Once everything was properly mixed together I left it to cook on a low light for thirty minutes.
While the contents of the saucepan cooked I chose some appropriate music to listen to. Today's choice was Tom Waits' 1973 debut album closing time a record that covers a wide range of ground despite its only instruments being Waits' tobacco ridden voice, a pocket-sized horn section, a piano and the the odd bit of percussion, acoustic guitar and bass. This charming album mainly seems to be set in a late night world of rough bars populated by down and outs and other lowlifes and it owes a big debt to the work of Bob Dylan and Randy Newman.
After half an hour I filled about half of another saucepan with water and while it was coming to the boil I added five ounces of grated cheddar cheese to the sauce that had been cooking and once the cheese had melted into the sauce I left it to cook on the lowest light of the hob possible.
When the water in the other saucepan came to boil I added the yolks and whites of four eggs to it and boiled them for about four minutes until they were slightly hard boiled. I then turned off the heat and set them to one side.
I added enough olive oil to fill the bottom of my Le Cresceut dish, turned on the heat and gradually added five hundred grams, roughly two medium sized packs worth, of spinach to the dish. As the spinach cooked it began to shrink which meant there was enough space to add a liberal helping of white wine vinegar, the Bechamel Sauce and the four eggs once I had first put them through a colander to remove all the water. Once I had stirred everything together in the Le Cresceut dish on a medium heat for five minutes it was ready to serve.
The results were pretty positive for my initial attempt at this quite difficult dish which is made rich by the hard boiled eggs, white wine vinegar and given substance by retaining the onion, garlic and thyme in the Bechamel Saunce. I think next time though I'll cook the eggs for a little less longer so that they are soft boiled and the yolk runs out of them onto the other ingredients when I serve it. In any event the meal was able to fortify me sufficiently for the evening's action-packed trip to the home of two of my friends in order to help them celebrate the birth of their daughter with a spot of sponge cake and a couple of bottles of champagne.
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| Just after the eggs and Bechamel Sauce had been added to the shrunken spinach |
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| Two poached eggs and plenty of spinach, sauce and white wine vinegar means a rich and tasty meal. |
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