I have plumbed the internet, and found two recipes, neither of which reflects the fantastic and odd creation I made this morning for our breakfast, loosely based on a recipe from a Paris cooking school I attended last year. This was good enough to remind myself what worked, and what I'd change.

Philippe also loved it, and suggested it could be dinner or an appetizer.

Oeufs en Meurette at Epicurious.com

Sauce meurette is one of the grand classics of French country cooking, a dark concentrated essence of red wine, stock, and vegetables. You would expect it to be paired with the equally powerful flavors of meat or poultry, but no — meurette is unique in accompanying fish, or poached eggs, as here. For extra flavor, I like to poach the eggs in the wine, which is then used for the sauce; they emerge an odd purple hue, but this is later concealed by the glossy brown sauce. For poaching, it's well worth looking for farm-fresh eggs as they hold their shape better than store-bought eggs.

Oeufs en meurette is a favorite restaurant dish, not least because it can be prepared ahead and assembled to order. However, most regrettably, it is not a dish to make in a hurry. All the elements can be prepared in advance, but the full glory of oeufs en meurette is ruined by trying to cut corners.

Wine for Cooking For six months in the year, we live in northern Burgundy, where the local pinot noirs are inexpensive and appropriately light for this dish. Equally good for meurette would be a pinot from the northern end of Oregon's Willamette Valley. Avoid the "blockbuster" type of heavy pinots that come from the hotter climes of California and Australia.

Wine to Drink To do justice to the richly flavored sauce, let's move up to something grander. A premier cru red from one of the villages in Burgundy's Côte de Beaune would do nicely, as would one of the more refined pinots from California's Carneros district.

via chocolateandzucchini.com

She tells a sweet story of a childhood recipe forgotten...

Until last week, that is, when I bought a package of Boursin -- a soft garlic and herb cheese -- the lid of which offered a simple recipe for oeuf cocotte, baked in the oven. And that's what we had for dinner the other day, to deliciously simple and satisfying results. /blockquote>

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Posted by christina at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

http://www.gumbopages.com/food/breakfast/eggs-sardou.html

This is one of New Orleans' grand egg dishes, created, as were so many classic dishes, at Antoine's Restaurant.

I remember when I was in Dijon going to Philippe's friend Jean Claud's house. Jean Claude's wife, Anne, was Briton, and when their kids squawked she pulled a bowl of batter from the fridge and quickly made a couple crepes to feed them.

To me this seemed terrible right. Terribly nice. Returning home, I tried to find a crepe pan, but they are all heavy and none are non-stick. Crepes are considered gourmet food, and thus the pans are expensive and not suited to everyday life. I made a pile of crepes on the odd day but it was always a hassle.

Then last year Philippe and I visited France again, and stayed with relatives. His aunt took me to Gifi, a discount sort of we-sell-everything shop. There we found dirt cheap lightweight nonstick crepe pans. Upon returning home, I put the pans to work.

Now every single saturday morning starts with crepes.

For awhile the model for me was to cook the entire bowl of batter, and keep the crepes in the fridge. Crepes reheat beautifully, so it works well. But now I have the bowl of batter in teh fridge, and I can quickly pour out a crepe and eat it hot from the skillet and it keeps me from squawking too.

I could use Anne's recipes, but I find Julia Child's recipe work well for me. Here is how I make it each saturday morning (and now sometimes other times when I'm hungry)

Growing up in Iowa, Easter morning was traditionally greeted with an egg hunt and hot cross buns. Admittedly we are out of season here, but hey, a recipe is a recipe....