Being a Top Chef at Home

First, an update: I did see the Chicago River yesterday but, alas, it was not all that green. I guess the official St. Patrick’s Day festivities took place last weekend (so the city could party hard without having to go to work the next day I guess) and it had faded considerably since then. Also, I lied when I said I was wearing festive socks…they just were not appropriate work attire given the shoes I decided to wear yesterday. But, never fear, Jason rocked his shamrock socks so at least one member of our family was  getting in the spirit of things!

As you may recall my birthday gifts this year included the Top Chef Quickfire Cookbook. When planning out the menu/grocery list for this week I decided to try out one of its recipes and landed on Season 4 cheftestant Antonia’s Poached Egg Salad. I was drawn to it for two reasons—1) it includes mushrooms which you all know I love (although I promise that the next three recipes at least will NOT include mushrooms as a primary ingredient) and 2) it includes poached eggs which I have become somewhat obsessed with of late. The other reason was that I had a really amazing warm mushroom and poached egg salad a few months ago at Talulla and I wanted to see if this would be a way of recreating it at home.

I made a number of substitutions to the recipe as written because, unlike the cheftestants on the show, I do not have anything and everything at my disposal in terms of ingredients and I did not want to spend a ridiculous amount of money buying them all. So instead of chervil, I used parsley. Instead of mache, I used baby romaine. And I nixed the squash blossoms altogether.

But I did include one somewhat unusual ingredient included in the recipe—sunchokes. According to the package they came in, sunchokes are the tuber from the sunflower…and “have the nutty flavor of a potato, jicama, and an artichoke. They can be eaten raw, prepared like a potato, or sautéed and served with fresh herbs.” As you can see from the picture they look like small, knobby potatoes. But they are a bit softer (and therefore harder to peel) than the average potato.

This is what sunchokes look like.

This recipe, though seemingly simple, has a lot of a steps and took a little longer than I expected. I did realize that I need to work on my egg-poaching skills though. Not so pretty. And I think I left half the egg whites in the pot! But all in all it was pretty good. Jason gave it two thumbs up, saying “it’s hard to go wrong with bacon and mushrooms.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

Antonia’s Poached Egg Salad
Adapted from Top Chef: The Quickfire Cookbook

Ingredients:
4 strips bacon, cut into ¼ inch pieces
½ pound of wild mushrooms (I used a pre-sliced stir-fry mix from the local grocery store)
½ pound of sunchokes, peeled and diced
Salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Olive oil
1 small bunch chives, chopped
¼ cup of flat leaf parsley, chopped
4 cups of baby romaine or other small leaf lettuce

1.In a large sauté pan over medium-low heat, slowly crisp the bacon. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a plate lined with paper towels to drain. Pour off and reserve bacon fat, leaving enough in the pan to sauté the mushrooms. Add the mushrooms to the pan and increase heat to medium. Saute until soft, about 3-5 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl.
2. Add some olive oil to the pan if necessary and then add the sunchokes. Saute over medium heat until tender about 5-7 minutes. Add to the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper.
3.Meanwhile poach the eggs. Bring a quart of water and 1 teaspoon of vinegar to a slow boil over high heat. Crack the egg, one at a time, into a small bowl. When the water boils, reduce heat to simmer. Stir water counterclockwise until it swirls, then carefully add 1 egg to the moving water. Simmer gently until the whites are firm, about 1-2 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and let drain on a paper towel until ready. Repeat with the second egg.
4.Combine the bacon fat, vinegar, and Dijon mustard. Slowly whisk in olive oil until the dressing has emulsified.
5.To assemble, mix mushrooms and sunchokes with parsley, chives, and bacon. In another bowl toss lettuce with dressing. Divide lettuce among two plates. Top with mushroom/sunchoke mixture and a poached egg.