Benedict Eggs

Poached eggs... Somehow I've always considered them a very difficult task, something only a pro could make. I mean, properly poached eggs, in a pot with simmering water, not on a pan with the help of a ring that would hold the egg whites together. However, I always wanted to try. At the end, what's the worst thing that could happen? A couple of wasted eggs? Oh well, this is really far from a disaster. So, I thought I would give it a go and see. I googled a lot in order to find a perfect technique. Apparently, all of them involved adding some vinegar to a pot of simmering water and them pouring the egg inside. Well, doesn't sound too difficult, does it? Let's see what I could make...

I already had in mind an evil recipe which involved poached eggs. Benedict eggs! On one hand, poached eggs do not require any fat to cook. But, the Hollondaise sauce for the eggs is almost entirely made of butter! So it kind of ruins the healthy, low-cal profile of the dish. Therefore, I would not encourage you to make them your "usual" weekend breakfast. But once in a while, I guess there is no harm.

When I eventually manage to put the whole dish together, I realized that the only real difficulty was to make everything simultaneously. You really should have your eyes on the eggs while poaching. At the same time, the sauce requires constant stirring. So you either need an assistant that you can trust or a place where you could keep the sauce hot while poaching the eggs. I went for the second one (No offence! :P), placing the bowl with the sauce in the warm (about 50 degrees) oven. Worked pretty well :)

INGREDIENTS (2 servings):

4 large eggs

2 slice smoked bacon, either fried or just the way it is :P

2 slices of toasted bread (the original recipe requires toasted English muffins instead, but in Holland it is impossible to find them, so... bread it is!)

Slices of cheese and fresh tomato to serve

1/2 cup white vinegar

For the Hollonaise sauce:

150 gr butter

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp hot water

1 tbsp lemon juice

pinch of cayenne pepper

salt and ground black pepper to taste

1. Prepare the sauce. In a small sauce pan melt the butter and set aside

2. In a bowl beat the egg yolks with lemon juice, cayenne, salt and pepper.

3. Slowly start adding the melted butter and hot water, while constantly stirring.

4. Return the mixture to the saucepan, and cook over a VERY low heat, while CONSTANTLY stirring. It is very important that you keep the heat as low as possible and stir the sauce all the time. Otherwise, you risk cooking your eggs, so you will end up with pieces of cooked yolks swimming in melted butter. Be patient, it will take some time, but eventually the sauce will start thickening. It took me about 15 minutes!!! Remove from the heat and keep warm until serving.

5. Now poach the eggs. Bring a pot of water to the boil. Lower the heat, so that the water is simmering but not really boiling. Add the vinegar (it helps the egg whites to stay together istead of "dissolving" in the water).

6. Break an egg in a cup, taking care not to damage the yolk.

7. With a spoon swirl the water around to create a whirlpool. Bring the cup with the egg close to the water surface and very carefully pour it in the middle. Continue moving the water around. Cook for about 1-2 minutes, remove the egg with a slotted spoon and set aside.You eggs should be firm outside but still runny inside. Proceed with the next egg. Some people manage to cook all the eggs at once. I thought I would stay away from this at least at my first attempt. :P

8. Assemble your final dish: First place a toasted bread on a plate, next a slice of bacon, next 2 poached eggs and top with half of the sauce. Garnish with some cheese and tomato slices and enjoy!

Spinach omelet

Again no blogging for quite some time, because of my trip home. The vacation was wonderful. I spent Christmas at Kastoria, a beautiful city in the north of Greece. Then a long drive to Thessaloniki, a week of drinking and a traditional new year's night at friend's place where we traditionally played Black Jack (I lost 1 whole euro :P) and had a traditional Vasilopita pie (my mom's recipe of the pie is coming). The pie contains a lucky coin inside and the person who gets the piece with the coin is supposed to be very lucky in the coming year. Well this year I won 3 coins, so I am very optimistic about this year!

Anyways, now I'm back to Amsterdam and cooking again. However, I didn't have time to upload the pictures so I will post another omelet recipe (too many eggs lately), which I made just few days before going home.

INGREDIENTS:

3 eggs
1 medium tomato, diced
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped
1/4 zucchini, diced
30-40 gr feta cheese, crashed
1/2 tsp dry oregano
salt, ground black pepper to taste
olive oil for frying
1 tbsp parsley for garnishing, finely chopped

1. In a pan with non-stick surface heat the oil. Saute the onion with zucchini until softened.
2. In a bowl beat the eggs. Add tomatoes, spinach, feta and oregano and spice up with salt and pepper.
3. Pour the egg mixture over the onion and zucchini, cover, lower the heat and cook until the omelet is hard but still juicy. Garnish with parsley and serve along with cheese or ham or both.
4. Alternatively, instead of frying you could pour all the ingredients into a baking pan and bake in the oven.

In fact you could use any vegetables you have in your fridge. When I cook it for lunch I some times use potatoes instead of zucchinis or add some ham as well. I would guess that chicken must also fit nicely. Hmmm, I might try it soon :)

Feta cheese omelet

I have to admit, I was not blogging too much lately. But I just came back to Greece few days ago and I was meeting with friends, picking up and dropping off people at the airport and of course...shopping! So, I really did not have time. Sorry for that! The truth is that I did not have time for cooking either. But I felt a bit guilty, so I went through old pictures and found out a picture of a fried double egg that I have on the head of this blog. Also, Arturinho was asking for this recipe from the beginning of my blog, so here it comes.

INGREDIENTS:
(for each omelet)

2 eggs
50gr Feta cheese, mashed
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1 small clove garlic, minced
3 slices smoked ham
1 small tomato
60gr mozzarella cheese, cut in 6 pieces
6 fresh basil leaves
some butter for frying
ground black pepper to taste
egg ring of any shape (optional)

1. Separate egg whites from yolks.
2. In a small bowl mix the egg whites, Feta cheese, onion and garlic. Spice with some black pepper. Don't add any salt as Feta is already salty enough.
3. In a pan with non-stick surface melt some butter. Place an egg ring (if using) in the middle and pour inside the cheese mix. Place the two egg yolks on top of the omelet. Close the lid, lower the heat and let the eggs cook until the whites are firm and cooked through.
4. On a plate arrange the ham. Place the omelet on top.
5. Cut the tomato in 6 pieces. In each basil leaf place a piece of mozzarella and a piece of tomato. Arrange them around the omelet and it's ready to eat.

Really nice way to wake up your beloved once in the morning! ;)

Grenki

I was lieing in my bed this morning, wondering if the weather would improve later on and if we would see some sun. It took some time to wake up completely and by the time I was up I was pretty hungry. I was thinking about some nice breakfast idea and remembered my mom's Grenki (very popular Russian breakfast). I think the English name for this is French toast. I literally grew up with this food. It was a typical weekend breakfast since I can remember myself. Some nice memories came to my mind. :) I wonder why I make them sooo rarely.

INGREDIENTS:

10 slices of bread

3 eggs

100 ml milk

pinch of salt
pinch of sugar

some olive oil or butter for frying
sliced ham and mozzarella for serving, optional (you could remove the ham for vegetarian version)

1. In a shallow bowl beat the eggs with the milk, salt and sugar.

2. Heat the oil or melt the butter in a pan with non-stick surface.
3. One by one dip the bread slices into the egg mixture from both sides (don't let them soak though) and place on the pan, few at a time. Fry on both sides until its dark golden. Remove from the pan, set aside and proceed with the next batch.

4. Arrange few Grenki on a pan, place a slice of ham and some mozzarella on each piece, cover and fry over a very low heat until the cheese melts. Serve immediately.

Alternatively you could serve Grenki with jam or honey. It is a great start of the day and it keeps you full for quite some time. My man sad that Grenki rock!!!

Green Beans with Broccoli and Eggs

After making the salad for a Sunday's dinner I had about half pack of frozen green beans left in my freezer. Given that my freezer is really tiny I was thinking of a recipe that would let me get rid of the leftovers.

Hmmm... Green beans, greens beans... My mom cooks green beans with eggs and it's actually a really nice side dish. She uses the ones that are sort of flat, I think they are called snap beans. Well, I only had string beans but I decided to give it a try. And since I also had some broccoli, I just threw it in as well. Not bad at all!

INGREDIENTS:

200 gr any green beans, cut in 3-4 cm long pieces
1 cup broccoli (tips only), cut in bites
1 cup leak, chopped
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup water
3 eggs
4 tbsp lemon juice
salt and ground black pepper to taste

1. In a large pan heat the oil.
2. Add the onions and garlic and cook until the onion is tender.
3. Add the beans and water, cover and cook for about 5 minutes.
4. Add the broccoli and leak and cook for few minutes. Do not overcook it. The broccoli should be still crunchy.
5. In a small bowl beat the eggs with lemon juice, salt and pepper.
6. Pour the egg mixture over the vegetables and mix well, so that it goes everywhere. Cook for few minutes or until the eggs are hard and liquids have evaporated.

It could be served as a side dish with fish or stake, but I actually like it as a lunch just the way it is, without anything else. Light an healthy. Thanks mommy!

Omelet with ham, cheese and chili beans

About a year ago I brought to Amsterdam a Greek Tavli game (one of the most popular versions of Tavli is backgammon). Since then me and Stratis established our little weekend tradition. The morning starts with a big cup of Greek coffee (recipe is coming soon and don't you dare calling it Turkish!) and a game of Tavli which could last up to 2 hours (!) and even more sometimes depending on the mood.

Anyways, the problem with this tradition was that we actually stopped eating proper breakfast and would eat a brunch (=BReakfast + lUNCH) instead. So I figured that in order to keep us full till the evening, the brunch should be quite nutritious. Piece of cake! What is more nutritious than eggs?! And since we are not so huge fans of plain eggs I came up with the following simple, tasty and quite healthy omelet recipe. I use 2 eggs per portion. I think in combination with all the other ingredients it's more than enough.

INGREDIENTS:

2 eggs
2-3 slices Gouda cheese, chopped (you could substitute it with any other low fat cheese, like mozzarella or Feta)
1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp lemon juice
1 small pinch baking soda salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 small onion, chopped
1/2 red paprika
2-3 slices smoked ham, chopped (optional but very highly recommended)
1/2 can (100gr) chili beans in their sauce

1. Break the eggs in a bowl and beat them with a whisk.
2. Add the cheese, basil, parsley, lemon juice, baking soda, salt and pepper and mix well.
3. In a large pan heat the oil.
4. Add the onion, paprika and ham to the pan and fry until the onion is golden.
5. Stir in the egg mixture, lower the fire, cover with a lid and let cook until the omelet is solid. Transfer to a plate.
6. In the same pan warm the chili beans and transfer them to the plate with the omelet.

Ready and full with proteins!