Combining many loves.. poached eggs with melted leeks. This is breakfast for dinner on crack.
Fun factoid – the Welsh first joined forces with that delicious Allium, the leek, during a battle against those pesky Saxon invaders under the direction of.. Saint David! They wore them to identify who was a fellow Welshman to prevent crossfire. Clever Cymru. Yay for Wales! Cymru am byth! Eat welshcakes… et cetera. The leek is such a glorious vegetable it deserves celebrating more than once a year on St. David’s Day. Like a giant, milder, sweeter spring onion, it makes a great bedfellow with my other great love… butter.
I first cooked this recipe before the publication of Thomasina Miers’ Home Cook, she’d featured this recipe in her then weekly column, The weekend cook.
Given my penchant for eggs and breakfast food any time of the day, I had to try this recipe for poached eggs with melted leeks and chipotle-tahini dressing. True to the ethos of Home Cook, the recipe was reasonably fuss-free but SO delicious. Surprisingly, the recipe only has two ingredients that could be a bit of a faff to source. I’ve had some Za’atar lurking in my store cupboard for too long so was thankful to open it finally. I made an approximation of the Chipotle in Adobo by making a quick mix of tomato puree, white wine vinegar, smoked paprika, cumin, garlic and oregano. This quick mix saved me from having to locate a paste that would inevitably just sit turning rancid in my fridge.
With the leeks melting in some salted butter, I quickly made the dressing while the poaching pan was coming to a boil. The dressing was little more than a quick fork together. The only think left to do was poach the eggs and toast the bread. Simple indeed. Poaching was a method of egg cooking I’ve avoided till I discovered Dan Doherty’s seemingly foolprood method in Toast Hash Roast Mash (the man knows his eggs). The rest was just a haphazard assembly job. Its nigh on impossible to make splodges of dressing and poached eggs look elegant so I won’t lose much sleep over the mess posted below.. As you can see, I used good old granary bread instead of Miers’ sourdough because it’s a midweek evening and I’m not going to any artisan bakeries after work.
My God though, messy as it looked, it was GOOD EATING. The dressing was an absolute knockout. Citrussy, hot, nutty, smoky and a bit creamy. It really elevated the dish. Miers’ said this dish was influenced by her Mexican travels (chipotle), her time around Shepherd’s Bush (tahini) and her Nan in Wales (leeks). True fusion food. I wasn’t convinced it would really work together. It is after all like eating hummus and eggs. Like some sort of wondrous gastronomic alchemy, it’s a knockout. The dressing would also be great to liven up a sad salad or as a party dip. Perhaps a bit too punchy to just spoon into one’s mouth although I did give this a good go.
The full recipe can be found here, or alternatively buy the cookbook for more Breakfast for Dinner ideas.
