A Simple Brunch Menu: Simmered Mushrooms with Poached Eggs

One of the things I look forward to on the weekend is enjoying brunch with my husband. Our morning starts predictably with the sound of the coffee-maker pulverizing aromatic dark roasted coffee beans, my husband unfurls the weekend newspaper to glance at the front-page headlines then, we set about making brunch together. Some weekends, we want something sweet and fruity like blueberry pancakes topped with Quebec maple syrup. Other times, we prefer something savoury like a traditional English breakfast.

Eggs seem to be a necessary staple of our weekend ritual. I love them because they are utterly versatile and are absolutely delicious in so many ways: hard-boiled, soft-boiled, scrambled, sunny side up, over easy, poached, coddled, baked, salted, pickled, souffled, and meringued. (Although, not sure pickled eggs is something I'd want for breakfast...)

Usually, I have my eggs overeasy with an oozing, dribbling egg yolk that I sop up with a warm crisp multi-grain toast soldier. It is the simplest and quickest way to cook an egg properly. However, truth be known, my favourite egg is one that is gently poached: a rich golden yolk gently cradled by the tender egg white. A thick slice of smoked salmon and a spoonful of hollandaise and I am over the moon. It's a perfect way to start the day. I don't have a poached egg as often as I would like but when I do, I usually resolve myself to having it again soon.

I was flipping through an old issue of Gourmet magazine when inspiration struck me. There in its glossy pages, I saw two quivering poached eggs resting upon a plate full of roasted mushrooms, and I thought, “Now that would make an excellent brunch item.”

I had a small amount of chicken broth leftover, and I thought about slowly simmering the mushrooms. This is what I came up with...



Poached Eggs over Simmered Mushrooms
1 tbsp vegetable oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb assorted mushrooms – cleaned, sliced into thick slices (shitake, button, cremini, oyster, morel)
1/2c chicken broth
¼ tsp chilli flakes
¼ tsp herbes de province

4 eggs
1 tbsp white vinegar

2 tbsp snipped chives
truffle oil

1. Heat vegetable oil in large pan. Add minced garlic and sauté until softened.
2. Add mushrooms and broth and simmer until the mushrooms reduce in size and the broth is thickened. This should take approximately 20-25 minutes.
3. Once mushrooms are almost ready, heat a separate shallow pan with water. Add 1 tbsp of vinegar to the water. (Before you add the eggs to the water, ensure you have a slotted spoon and your serving dish closeby.) When water begins to simmer, crack one eggs into a shallow dish. Carefully and slowly tip the egg into the barely simmering water. Repeat with the remaining eggs.
4. There should be enough water to fully cover the egg. Do not allow the pan to come to a boil. The water should continue to simmer and the whites of the eggs should start to take shape. The yolk will be extremely fragile and wobbly. It should probably take about 2 minutes.
5. Tumble mushrooms into a serving dish, and with the slotted spoon, carefully spoon the poached eggs out of the water and slide onto the mushrooms. Dust with chives and drizzle with truffle oil.
6. Serve immediately.


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Shout Out

In the course of our lifetime, we meet hundreds if not thousands of people. Some stop briefly, while others linger, get cozy and stay for a while. I met my friend, Abby, in a cool little town named, Kota Kinabalu in an exotic faraway place called Malaysian Borneo. She was just finishing off a tour of Asia before she heading off to start law school in the US, and I was on the front-end of a nine month backpacking sojourn throughout Asia. We both reluctantly signed up for a guided tour to re-assure worrying parents at home that at least a portion of our travels would be “safe.” As single girls, fate and the tour paired us together.

I arrived in Borneo and checked into the hotel already to find that the “other girl” was already there. Darn, I wouldn’t get first dibs on the beds. She had just come back from a hair salon smelling of Aqua-Net (or some highly fragrant hair care product). She offered me a slice of carrot cake (?) and we got to the business of getting to know each other. We shared our travel stories thus far and our life before embarking on travel. It was immediately apparent to us that we were meant to be friends. We found more similarities than differences: long distance running, politics, travel, scuba, and of course, food!

We spent about two weeks travelling together, climbed Mount Kinabalu together and zipped around Sabah eating juicy pineapples, roti telur (a thin buttery pancake folded into a tiny parcel with a cooked egg in every bite), and prawn curries. We watched a bootleg copy of Spiderman on the evening of our “home-stay” with a local family and bathed in the Kinabatangan River, which is full of saltwater crocodiles (or so I was told.) It was a very enchanting and exciting experience.

Back at home, Abby only lived about an hour by plane and over the years we stayed in touch and visited on occasion. Now she lives a supremely “glamour” life in the City of Lights and keeps me posted on her whereabouts on Facebook. When she recently asked me for a healthy fish recipe, how could I refuse a kindred spirit?

The recipe that I share with you below is something that my husband and I have been making for years. He says it’s my signature dish. We usually have this dish at least once a week in the winter. It is influenced by something my mother used for cook for me when I was younger and has some of my most favourite flavours: ginger, green onions, and shitake mushrooms. It’s a fast dinner and really easy to make. We usually serve it over a bowl of brown rice.



2 basa fillets (or any other thick lean white fish – haddock, halibut), boneless and skinless
1 thumb sized piece of ginger (I am talking Andre the Giant thumb size or more if you dare)
2 stalks green onions, sliced
5 shitake mushrooms, sliced
1 c water
2 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
1 tbsp soy sauce

Oyster sauce
Sesame oil

1. Peel and julienne ginger.
2. Place fillets in a large skillet or casserole (You are looking for a pan that is wide but also has walls, also choose one that has a lid.) Add 1c of water, sprinkle fish sauce and soy sauce over top.
3. Scatter green onions, ginger, shitakes on top of the fish.
4. Drizzle oyster sauce over top and cover. Turn on the heat to medium heat and allow the fish to get steamy. Leave on stove top for another 5 minutes. (Fish should cook quickly. If you are uncertain of the “doneness,” find an inconspicuous edge of the fillet and gently stick the fork in, if the fish flakes and crumbles under your fork, you’re probably close to being done.)
5. Remove off heat, and serve over rice, spooning broth over top.
6. Drizzle with sesame oil and serve.

A New Take on Risotto

This weekend started off with unseasonably cold weather. Even with a down-filled winter coat, winter boots and merino wool undershirt, the cold still managed to seep in somehow. And now, my husband tells me the weather forecast calls for snow all this week. I guess there is no escaping the weather except for a move to Costa Rica perhaps. (Awfully tempting, isn’t it?)

This week also marked the start of our “winter share” box from our organic CSA, Plan B. Inside our box were the tiniest Macintosh apples, a green cabbage, a small brown paper bag of fresh shitake mushrooms, a parsnip, a head of broccoli and a generous handful of potatoes and yams. This means rich, warming flavours for dinner this week. In search of something a little different for dinner, I decided to cook the ancient grains I had in the pantry along with some of the ingredients from our weekly box.



I know that the mere mention of grains conjures up thoughts of cardboard-tasting health food. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I bought these grains one afternoon after leisurely perusing the basement level of the St. Lawrence Market. I didn’t really have a plan for them and to be frank, I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with them. But like many ingredients I am not really familiar with, I derive a certain satisfaction in thinking about how an ingredient might become a meal and then going out and bringing it to life. Sometimes, it results in disaster, though rarely inedible. However, other times, I win the new ingredient jackpot, and my kitchen experiment turns into something that I would make again, and share with others.

I had eaten a rice blend recently that included kasha and quinoa and it was not bad but a little on the bland side. I thought it could be easily improved. Additionally, I had made a farro salad this past summer for a party and thought there would be an opportunity to do something hearty and warm for winter with these grains.

Farro is a whole grain particularly popular in Italy. It looks like a grain of rice with its husk intact. It has a nice chewy texture, delicious and hearty. Quinoa is a high-protein grain which makes it a vegetarian favourite. I love how its tiny pin-heads cook into the pudgy micro orbs that almost seem to pop in your mouth when you take a bite. Kasha is a whole grain made from buckwheat. It is often served as porridge is Eastern Europe as it often becomes a little mushy when cooked.

The approach I took to cooking was to think about the seasonal foods and flavours I enjoy and how to bring them into harmony with these grains. Risotto is a big winter time meal that I have come to enjoy over the last several years. I never used to like it, but I have recently been converted. Apples are a fruit that cellars well and hence are a winter time staple. Shitake mushrooms have a great woodsy flavour and may be cultivated indoors over the winter, making it possible to enjoy them all year around.

The recipe that I have provided here is probably enough for at least 6 people. I decided to make a little extra for our lunches for a day or two.



Ancient Grains “Risotto” with Mushrooms and Sautéed Apples

1 c farro
1 c quinoa
1 c kasha

2 small Macintosh apples, peeled and diced
1 small onion, peeled and diced finely
1 garlic clove, minced
5 shitake mushrooms finely diced

4 c of vegetable broth
1 tbsp of butter
1 tbsp of ground sage
1 tbsp of salt

1. Toast farro in a dry pan, shaking on occasion, until the farro smells nutty.
2. Rinse farro, quinoa and kasha under cold water and drain well.
3. Melt butter in a medium size pan, and add onion and garlic.
4. Once softened, add mushrooms, grains, 3 cups of vegetable stock (reserving one cup of broth), sage and salt. Cover and cook on low-medium for approximately 15 minutes. Stir grains and check water level. Add the additional cup of broth if most of the liquid has been absorbed. Add apples, re-cover and cook for another 5-10 minutes. Check often to ensure it doesn’t burn.
5. Once the liquid has been absorbed and the farro has softened but still has texture. Turn off heat and keep covered for another five minutes.
6. Serve with buttery sautéed apples.

Sautéed Apples

1 tbsp of butter
2 large Macintosh apples, peeled and sliced

1. Melt butter in a large pan. Once melted, add apples and sauté until apples soften and are glistening.