Recipes « (y)our food choices™

When life gives you flat Champagne, poach something.

You wake up after a party to find half a bottle of flat Champagne (or Prosecco or Cava) sitting in the fridge. You’re head is pounding and you’re resolutions forbid alcohol for the foreseeable future. What do you do with that leftover sparkling wine? If your first thought is to dump it down the sink, get hold of yourself and take a deep breath. There are uses for the once sparkling stuff.

While researching recipes for the Mimosa post a few days ago Jason came across a recipe for poached eggs in Champagne. It looked interesting enough but when would we ever have left over sparkling wine? It just happens that on New Year’s Day we awoke to a half bottle of Prosecco in our fridge. We had already planned to make Black Eyed Peas and thought the eggs might make a nice accompaniment, but after looking in our fridge a bit more we discovered the makings for an Eggs Benedict sans Hollandaise with the Champagne-Poached Eggs. We had the fixings for Sunday brunch and since the Champagne was already flat it could wait another day.

For the semi-Eggs Benedict we used prosciutto and goat’s milk brie along with rustic potato rosemary bread instead of the traditional English muffin. It’s not that making hollandaise is a difficult process, but sometimes you want it to be as easy as making a toasted sandwich, which I think most of us can handle even on the most difficult of mornings.

The taste of the Champagne infuses with the egg whites and the little bit of butter in the poaching liquid adds a nice richness to them. This is definitely something we’ll make again. We give up alcohol at the beginning of every year for 4-6 months so it will be a while before we prepare it next, maybe next New Year’s Day!

Boil. Toast. Poach. Broil.

Eggs Benedict sans Hollandaise with Champagne-Poached Eggs

4 slices thick rustic bread (we used potato rosemary in our version)
Leftover Champagne (at least two cups)
2 tablespoons butter
4 eggs
4 slices prosciutto
4 slices brie

Lightly toast the bread. Heat the sparking wine with the butter in a sauté pan until it’s a gentle simmer. Boil a pan of water and add the eggs in their shells for 30 seconds. This is a great trick to keep the whites together. Crack each egg into a ramekin and gently pour into the sparkling wine and butter. Poach for 3-5 minutes. Meanwhile, under a broiler, place the a lightly toasted piece of bread, with a slice of prosciutto, and a slice brie and broil for 2-3 minutes or until the cheese is melting.

Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon from the poaching liquid, gently bloating the bottom on a towel. Place each egg on top of the brie and prosciutto toast. Serve immediately.

This is best served with a glass of Champagne or mimosa, but if you happen to be on the wagon, like us, enjoy with a glass of sparkling water and oj.

Cheers!

Hoppin' New Year!

This has been an unusual New Years Day for us. We usually don’t go out and then stay out on New Years Eve, but last night we found ourselves at a kick-ass house party that kept us out until 3AM. I don’t know how much sparkling wine we drank, but let’s just say it was a lot. When we got back to the apartment, we felt a bit peckish. Our first meal of the new year consisted of a much-loved standby, soft scrambled eggs with cheese and crispy prosciutto. We ate the eggs with a day old baguette remnant that we sliced into rounds and toasted. Not a bad beginning to a new year.

Our day got off to a bit of a slow start. We figured we likely missed people’s attention for Hoppin’ John recipes by the time we got around to cooking ours, but decided in the end to get this up to get a good start on this year’s writing as well. Hoppin’ John is a perfect, classic New Years dish, loaded with rich wonderful flavors and crazy nutritious. We ended up using refrigerated, Melissa’s pre-cooked black eyed peas we picked up at Andronico’s. They were the only option as the grocery had no dried peas and we forgot to pick some up earlier in the week. It turns out the grocery peas were pretty tasty so no regrets on this year’s shortcut.

We served the Hoppin’ John over jasmine rice and sautéed chard greens that were bright with the taste of rice vinegar and red chili flakes. At the table, the plate got an extra dusting of fresh ground black pepper and a dash or three of Tabasco. The smoky kielbasa coupled with the floral scent of the rice makes for a heady, aromatherapeutic experience. While not too hot, the jalapeno adds just a touch of extra warmth. This is the kind of dish we should all be eating more often.

Sauté of Chard

1 bunch chard
2 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 garlic cloves, rough chop
pinch red pepper flakes
splash of rice vinegar
salt and pepper

Remove the stems from the chard leaves. Put the leaves aside. Cut the stems into a medium dice. In a sauté pan over medium heat add the olive oil and garlic cook for 30 to 1 minute. Add the chard stems, red pepper flakes and a small pinch of salt sauté for 2-3 minutes or until slightly soften. Roll the reserved leaves together in a cigar shape and cut the chard into inch wide ribbons. Add the leaves to the sauté pan and cook for 1-2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. If the pan is starting to dry out add a tablespoon of water and cover for 2-3 minutes, or until the leaves are tender. Before serving add a splash of rice vinegar.

Hoppin’ John

2 table spoons olive oil
6 oz. kielbasa sausage, quartered lengthwise and diced
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
2 ribs celery, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
½ jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced
1 bay leaf
pinch of dry thyme
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups precooked black eyed peas

In a heavy stock pot or dutch oven, cook kielbasa in oil over medium heat until just slightly browned. Add everything but the chicken stock and black eyed peas to the pot with the kielbasa and sautée until vegetables soften, approximately 5 – 10 minutes. Add stock and peas and bring the pot to a low simmer. Cook, covered, for approximately 10 minutes or until the peas are tender. Discard bay leaf and serve over prepared jasmine rice with sauté of chard.