Oeufs en Croustade….ok, french it is..

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Art, breakfast, chopped parsley, cooking, egg yolks, food, french, french cookery, garlic clove, hollandaise sauce, Party, Photography, poached eggs, Recipes, Travel, vegetarian

I ate so much at this Christmas time of the year that I’m planning to be on a detox diet for at least…. forever.. I know I have some more sweets to present but I decided to break the line with one of the dishes (of course we had more than 1 having in mind we both love eating) I made for my boyfriend for the our Christmas dinner.

I have tones of cooking books and to be honest I don’t have any cookery that I prefer to make. I love them all. I have Italian, Argentinean, British, French and lots of Bulgarian of course. So this time it was French.

What I usually do is giving Hristian the library and asking: “What do you want?” He liked this:

So let it be OEUFS EN CROUSTADE or Poached Eggs on Bread with Hollandaise Sauce. A croustade is a hollowed-out piece of bread that has been fried or baked to make a firm little case for fillings. Croustades provide the perfect base for poached eggs.

Ingredients for 4 serves:

For the Croustades:

1 stale unsliced loaf white bread; 50g butter, melted; 1 garlic clove, crushed

For the Hollandaise Sauce:

2 egg yolks; 2 teaspoons lemon juice; 90g unsalted butter, cut into cubes

4 eggs; 1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley

To make the croustades, preheat the oven to 180°C. Cut four 3cm thick slices from the bread and remove the crusts. Cut each piece of bread into a 9cm squares then use around 6.5 cm round cutter to cut a circle in the center of the bread without cutting all the way through. Use a knife to scoop out the bread from the center to form a hollow.

Mix together the melted butter and garlic and brush all over the bread. Place on a baking pan and bake for about 8 min until crisp and lightly golden. Keep them warm.

To make the hollandaise sauce, put the egg yolks and lemon juice in a saucepan over very low heat. Whisk continuously adding the butter piece by piece until the sauce thickens. Please mind not to overheat or the eggs will scramble. Season with salt and pepper. The sauce should be of pouring consistently – if it is a little too thick add 1-2 tablespoons of hot water to thin it a little.

To poach the eggs bring a pan of water to the boil. Crack an egg into a small bowl, reduce the heat and slide the egg into a simmering water. Poach for around 3 min then remove carefully with a slotted spoon and drain in paper towels.  Poach the other 3 eggs in the same way.

Gently place each egg into each croustade. Pour over a little hollandaise sauce and sprinkle with parsley.

And ..oh my got.. what we get is amazing… We almost ate it at once before I could take any pictures….

This perfectly goes with any type of wine and….

…. may be some french chansons…:)

 

Christmas Stuff – tired my budd off..

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Art, Chicken, chocolate, Christmas, christmas holidays, coconut sauce, Cookies, cooking, Dinner, egg cream, Family, food, home, pasta machine, poached eggs, red berries, Sweet

I locked myself in the kitchen all week as I wanted to prepare some stuff for my colleagues and a couple of my best friends and of course for my brother who loves all kind of sweet stuff. I didn’t get the idea however that this will squeeze my energy out completely and bring me the hardest back pains. I swore to myself.. and everyone that I will not get in the kitchen for the next 2 months.. I doubt it.

I’m writing on the kitchen table in my parents’ house at the moment and my mom is making these beautiful and delicious rose cookies ( as she calls them ) and the smell is amazing but even this reminds me how dead I was during the last week.

All of this reminds me what I did after work – cooking and baking and mixing and rolling and sdjgksd… and now this smell…..

Anyway following my previous post I wanted to share with you what I cooked for my boyfriend and the presents I prepared for my family and friends.  As we are going to celebrate the Christmas holidays separated  I decided to make dinner just for both of us. Well this wasn’t easy as he said: “I’ll help with everything” but his help consisted pretty much of sleeping on the couch…of course I didn’t expect anything else.

Of course I did all of it with pleasure: and most of all my present was a Pasta Machine… and I loooved it!! Here’s what we enjoyed.

We started with Sandwiches with Poached eggs and Hollandaise Sauce recipe will follow:

Then continued with Roasted chicken with a coconut sauce – Recipe will follow:

And ended with a lot of wine and this amazing Creme Brulee – again recipe will follow:

mmm it was so sweet and light and…and…

I what my friends and colleagues enjoyed:

– Christmas cookies with icing;

– Lime biscuits with egg cream;

– Chilli chocolate cookies;

– Cookies with red berries and pistachios;

– Biscuits with chocolate ganache;

– Chocolate cookies with orange peels;

All recipes will follow….:) Hope you enjoy them. And… Merry Christmas everyone!