Poached Egg and Tomato Sauce on Garlic Bread

My mother found the recipe for this dish on a magazine when I was still in school.  So it must have been about 20 years ago.  I immediately fell in love with it, and I still make this dish once in a while.  J and my daughter love this dish, too.  The good thing about this dish is that you can use baguette that are getting to be stale.  Or if you have tomato sauce left over, you don't even need to cook the sauce.  I love recipes that I can use extra stuff laying in the kitchen!  

*Tomato Sauce*

2 cloves garlic

1 table spoon olive oil

1 small tomato can

Salt and pepper to taste

< 1 > Cook the garlic in the olive oil in a pan.

< 2 > When the garlic is cooked to golden color, pour the canned tomatoes and cook it for 20 minutes.

< 3 > Put salt and pepper.  Done!

*Garlic Bread*

4 slices of baguette

1 clove of garlic, cut to half

< 1 > If the bread is fresh, toast it to light brown.

< 2 > Put the cut side of garlic against the bread, and smear the garlic all over the bread surface.  The hardened bread should work like a sand paper against the fresh garlic.

*Poached Eggs*

4  eggs

Poach them as you want. My secret is to cook them in a coffee maker.

*Assembling* 

Place the garlic bread on the plates and pour tomato sauce on it, then put the poached eggs.

The tartness of the tomato sauce and creaminess of the poached eggs work very nicely together.  The bread gets very soft by soaking the moisture from the sauce and the eggs.

There is a egg called "Onsen Egg" in Japan. "Onsen" means hot spring.  The egg is cooked in natural hot spring which temperature is 150 F for about 30 minutes, so they are boiled very softly for long time.  It's very much like a poached egg, but because it's cooked very slowly at the moderate temperature, it's soft all over.  The yolk gets hard at 50 F lower than the temperature that white gets hardened at, so the yolk is not too runny even the white is still very soft.

It was very difficult to get Onsen eggs unless you are actually at a hot spring in the past, but it became very popular and the technology allows people to duplicate same effect without having natural hot springs.

This is the method that I read years ago on some Japanese web site.  I have been cooking poached eggs with this method since then.  The great things about this way of cooking are almost fool proof, you don't need to be glued to the pan, very easy to clean, and you can cook ahead of the time if you wish.

All you have to do is to put the fresh eggs in the coffee pot, pour water in it as if you are making coffee, and turn it on.  You want to leave them in the pot for about 8 to 10 minutes.  You need to do it for a few times to see how long the eggs should be left in the pot to achieve your favorite consistency.

Yes, it looks funny.  But it tastes really good!  

We recently switched to a french press from a electric coffee maker.  But we kept it to make Onsen eggs.  

For breakfast, we sometimes put it over the brown rice and sprinkle soy sauce over it.  

I love Omelets!

Since J is trying to avoid as much as gluten possible, although he eats my tarts and sweets.....  I cook omelets often for breakfast.  I sometimes feel like it's too rich to eat eggs and cheese in early morning, but I definitely enjoy eating them for weekend brunch or lunch.  

My mother cooked very simple omelet with mozzarella cheese.  That was only omelet I was used to besides Japanese rice omelet.  So when I tasted other omelets with vegetables in, it really gave me new possibilities.

I love tomatoes.  I love avocados.  I like both of them in my omelet.  Sometimes I don't even bother to put cheese in since avocado is pretty rich.  But sometimes I do.  I had a nice block of  Emmental so I decided to use it.

*Tomato and Avocado Omelet *

2 eggs

a pinch of salt

1 tea spoon cooking oil

1/2 small tomato

1/2 abocado

1/8 cup cheese

< 1 > Whip eggs with salt using a fork while heating the oil in a frying pan

< 2 > Cook eggs until the surface is half cooked.

< 3 > Put cheese and vegetables and cover.  Cook for 1 min.

< 4 > fold it to half and serve.

My father can whip eggs so beautifully with a pair of chop sticks.  His eggs would be very light yellow with tiny consistent bubbles covering the surface.  I was always impressed to see how he does that as a child.  He told me to put a middle finger between the chop sticks so they are separated.  I've tried and tried, and am still trying, but it doesn't come out pretty like his.  But it's for a omelet...  I think it's good enough.

We had a great breakfast in the nice little diner in Vermont last year.  I love Vermont for its great dairy products and maple syrup.  They seems to be proud of what they make, too.  Even small town has a few stores that sells local works of artists and craftsman.  All the restaurants we visited were very creative and delicious.  I was so glad to be able to visit Vermont while we lived in North East.

I encountered this omelet in Vermont.  I thought it was a little weird to put radishes in a omelet.  But I ordered anyway because I didn't feel like having heavy omelet with sausage or cheddar cheese in it.  And I loved it!  It gives such a clean refreshing taste.

* Radish and Goat Cheese Omelet *

2 eggs

a pinch of salt

1 tea spoon cooking oil

2 radishes 

2 table spoon goat cheese

< 1 > Whip eggs with salt using a fork while heating the oil in a frying pan

< 2 > Cook eggs until the surface is half cooked.

< 3 > Put cheese and vegetables and fold.

< 4 > Cook for 1 minute and serve.

There are so many different things we can put it a omelet.....  I've even seen banana on a menu somewhere.  Yet I am not sure it really work, I will continue to think up more interesting combinations.