Eggs Florentine

I know! It’s been ages and ages and ages! But I’ve been busy with school and trying out recipes. It's going really well at school. Learning soooo much, and I'm gaining more confidence in the kitchen... paying more attention to the end presentation. It's great!! All I had hoped for.
I often post pictures on facebook about whatever I’ve been cooking, and I often get asked for recipes. I sometimes send a link, but more often than not, I’ve modified the recipe… or taken bits from here and there, so it’s not that easy. So here is my first try at providing a recipe, taken from here and there, with my modifications and all.

Now this recipe… it’s not quick... if you want to do everything from scratch. But there are alternatives… shortcuts, a quicker way of doing it. Let’s take the Mornay sauce part below: skip making the Bechamel sauce yourself and use a store bought packet, add an egg and some cheese, and voila! Don’t have fresh spinach? Frozen spinach is a great substitute. Still… here’s the full recipe below, split into the various parts required for this recipe, with shortcuts thrown in when possible.


Eggs Florentine

Poached egg

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs (the fresher, the better)
• 2 teaspoons vinegar
• Pinch of salt

Method:

• No use repeating what's already been told. This method explained in this link works flawlessly!

Mornay Sauce (Complicated version, easy version below)

Ingredients:

• 20g Flour
• 20g Butter
• 250ml milk
• Small onion, bay leaf, 2 cloves
• 1 egg yolk
• 50g grated cheese (Parmesan, gruyere) + 2 tsp

Method:

1. Make a studded onion by using the cloves to stick the back leaf to the onion, like a pin.
2. In a saucepan, bring milk almost to a boil with studded onion.
3. Remove from heat and allow flavours to infuse for 30 minutes, before passing milk through a sieve, keeping milk and throwing away the rest. 
4. Melt butter in saucepan and add flour stirring vigorously until flour is well blended but without browning.
5. Over low heat, slowly add milk to the butter/flour mixture (roux) starting with small amounts, always stirring vigorously to avoid lumps.
6. When all milk has been added, remove pan from heat and add egg yolk and cheese and keep on stirring

Mornay Sauce (Easy version)

Ingredients:

• 250ml pre-made Béchamel Sauce
• 1 egg yolk
• 50g grated cheese (Parmesan, gruyere) + 2 tsp

Method:

1. Slowly heat Bechamel sauce in a pan over a small burner. Do not bring to boil.
2. Remove from heat and add egg yolk and cheese and keep on stirring.
   

Spinach

Ingredients:

• Large bunch of spinach
• Butter
• 3 Garlic cloves, finely chopped

Method:

1. Removes stalks from spinach and wash leaves well. Squeeze water out and dab dry using paper towels.
2. In a large frying pan, melt some butter and brown 1/3rd of the garlic.
3. Add around 1/3rd of the spinach or as much as will fit in the pan and sauté spinach until wilted. Continue until all spinach has been sautéed.

Assembly

1. Divide spinach into two and arrange on a plate.
2. Place a poached egg on the spinach in each pate and spoon ½ the Mornay sauce on each of the eggs.
3. Sprinkle the remaining cheese and put the plates under a hot grill until the cheese has browned.
4. Serve with crusty bread.

Tips & Tricks:

1. The studded onion is not absolutely necessary in this case. Also, you can use a slice of onion and throw in the cloves and bay leaf separately.

2. The cheese in Mornay sauce should be 50% gruyere and 50% parmesan. I prefer using parmesan on its own… but I’m not a cheese lover myself.

3. Traditionally, Eggs Florentine are served with half a toasted English muffin underneath the spinach. I prefer serving crusty bread separately to scoop up the copious amounts of sauce I tend to throw in ;-) ◦