Eggs Florentine with Tomato Basil Salad

I got a beautiful bag of spinach in my first week’s CSA share and decided to use some of it for my breakfast today.  There is no chance that if I bought spinach from my local factory food outlet it would be fresh and beautiful a week later, but with farm fresh food you get a lot more time to use it up.  I steamed off the spinach in 1/2  a cup of boiling water covered until it just wilted.  I then drained it and squeezed out as much liquid as I could returned it to the pot added a punch of salt and 1/4 tsp of balsamic and set it aside.

Now when I think of spinach for breakfast I think eggs florentine.  This is a poached egg, served over steamed spinach on a crispy english muffin topped with hollandaise sauce.  Now don’t be afraid of hollandaise, it is a great mother sauce that can be the base for many delicious toppings, and if you pay attention you will get it right.

Hollandaise Sauce

Hollandaise is an emulsified sauce, and one of the French mother sauces.  An emulsified sauce is just a sauce that combines fat based flavor with water based flavor (usually something acidic).  In this case it is butter and lemon juice and the emulsifier (the thing that binds them together) is egg yolk.  To make a Hollandaise you need the following:

Ingredients

3 egg yolks

1/2 cup clarified butter

1 Tbsp water

1 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

salt and pepper

Tabasco sauce

Melt about 3/4 cups of unsalted butter, being careful not to burn it, let it bubble for about 3 minutes and then skip off all of the foam, pour into a bowl slowly leaving all the white bits in the pot.  Wash and dry the pot, return the clarified butter to it and put it on your warming element to keep it warm.  You will not use all of this butter,

Take a small pot and fill half full with water and bring it to a light simmer.  in a small metal bowl add in 3 egg yolks, the lemon juice and water, whisk until it is lemon yellow in color.  Now we need to incorporate the butter.

Place the bowl over the heat and stir the egg yolks, until you start to see trails left i the bowl.  Remove from the heat and drizzle about a tbsp of clarified butter into the bowl and whisk until the the butter is combined over the the simmering water.  Drissle in another tbsp of the butter.  Keep doing this until the sauce is shiny and smooth, it will start to slide around the bowl.  At that point stop.  If you add to much butter it will break.

If it does break do not panic, you can save it.  Take another egg yolk, put it in a clean bowl, add a little water and whisk until yellow, heat it for a minute over the hot water then whisk in the broken sauce, it will come together.  Finish with a little salt and pepper to taste and a few drops of Tabasco sauce.   This sauce is beautiful over eggs, or veggies like asparagus.

You will need to make a couple poached eggs.  A couple quick tips for making poached eggs.  Bring the water to a simmer in a fry pan, add in some salt (about 2 tsp) and a tsp of vinegar.  Add in the eggs (don’t over crowd the pan) and allow to cook until the whites are set.  Remove from the pan and let drain on a plate.

To assemble your eggs florentine you will need to toast off a couple english muffins and poach some eggs.  Place the english muffin on the plate top with some spinach, a soft poached egg and the spoon over some hollandaise sauce.

Cherry Tomato Basil Salid

Ingredients

2 cups of chopped cherry tomato

3 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

2 leafs of fresh basil chopped

salt and pepper to taste

I served this with a tomato basil salad using fresh cherry tomatoes from the greenhouse of Riverview Herbs.   I chopped up the tomatoes, made a vinnagrette using 3 tsp of very extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar, and a half a tsp of the hollandaise to emulsify the dressing.  Whisk the dressing and toss in with the tomatos then add a couple leafs of chopped basil.  It goes great with any egg dish.

Thanks to my Local Suppliers:

Eggs:                                      Elmridge Farm

Spinach:                                Taproot CSA

Tomatoes and Basil:         River view Herbs at the Halifax Market