Baked Parmesan French toast with poached eggs, prosciutto and rocket salad
And how to poach eggs
Published originally on my blog on 12 September 2010
My relationship with eggs has always been tumultuous. It's a love-hate thing that goes on for years and years. We've had our good times (my mom's sunny side up eggs with French fries), our bad times (plain omelettes) and our really bad times (food poisoning).
Like in all good love-hate relationships, there is also the element of surprise—an unexpected, and hopefully positive, discovery about your frenemy. In this relationship, the surprise came when I finally decided to eat poached eggs.
This blog is sometimes all about my late discoveries of food that people have been eating for decades and sometimes even hundreds of years. I'm a bit stubborn when it comes to tasting certain foods or dishes but when I finally do, one of two things can happen. Either confirm the fact that a little stubbornness is, after all, good or prove that I'm quite insane for not trying something for so long.
The latter applies in this circumstance. Why has my dislike for eggs kept me from trying this? Why don't people who regularly eat poached eggs shout it from the rooftops so the rest of us can hear? Poached eggs are delicious. And no, I haven't been living under a rock; it's just that we Greeks don't eat poached eggs. It's just not in our food culture.
But I think I'm getting carried away. Ok listen, it's an egg. We're not talking about a revolutionary flavor here. It's not like I'm suggesting the sixth basic taste* has been discovered. But for an egg skeptic like me, that was a breaking point. I can now safely say that I have a thing for eggs. Poached that is.
You take an egg, a simple chicken egg, and you drop it inside a pan filled with barely simmering water. The gentle swaying of the egg white that dances inside the scalding hot water looks like a ballerina twirling around in her tutu. The yolk disappears inside its white blanket and then, as you take it out of the water, it wobbles like a wonderfully set panacotta.
And what if that poached egg is being placed on top of something even more exciting like French toast or if you're feeling a little fancy 'pain perdu'? And what if that 'pain perdu' had been covered in parmesan and had been baked in the oven? And what if someone (uh, me) had the brilliant idea of adding some slices of prosciutto to the whole thing? Well, then you'd be in food heaven, wouldn't you?
Tasting the ultimate breakfast, brunch or even dinner—that's what this is. A complete meal, a unique dish with its own star—the poached egg. When you slice it open with a knife, the runny yolk reveals itself, oozing out like lava running down a snow peaked mountain. Its velvety texture is reminiscent of a perfectly cooked fried egg but without the oiliness. There's another texture to it, an airy, light quality that balances immaculately with the French toast, the prosciutto, the parmesan, the rocket. That's the beauty of the poached egg.
Do not tell me that you don't want to rush to your kitchen and make one right now. I wouldn't believe you.
*The five basic tastes are: sweet, bitter, sour, salty and umami. The word umami is Japanese and it means "good flavor". The umami taste has been discovered in 1908 by Dr. Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese scientist and is defined as a savory, meaty or brothy taste found in foods like meat, parmesan cheese, mushrooms, soy sauce, green tea and others, that is imparted by glutamate (an amino acid). In the '80s, various studies proved that umami constituted a legitimate fifth basic taste.
A further two distinct tastes have been proposed to exist by scientists. The "fat" taste and the "metallic" (or "calcium") taste. According to findings, it appears that people who are highly sensitive to the taste of fat, tend to eat less of it.
Baked Savory Parmesan French Toast with Poached Eggs, Prosciutto and Rocket Salad + How to Poach an Egg
The day before I made this dish I had baked two loaves of dense, crusty white bread with cornmeal. It was the perfect kind of bread for this dish. You can also use French baguette or country-style bread with thick crust and dense texture. Make sure that the bread is a bit stale (bought/made the previous day). If it is too fresh it will disintegrate when soaked in the custard.
There are many ways to poach an egg, like in plastic wrap or in special egg poachers, but the traditional, old-fashioned way and my own personal favorite is the one I'm describing below.