A Caudel on Poached Eggs – This dish would be a great breakfast dish. Poached egg, toasted bread and a light sauce. Simple, tasty and a great dish to show that the modern palate isn’t so different after all.
The original recipe for this dish is…
Pour faire un chaudel sur eulx pochiez: prenez persin hachie menu et refrit en bure, esve et vergus, faictez boulir ensamble; mettez vos soupes en plas, et oes et vostre brouet par dessus.
Terence Scully’s translation is…
To make a caudel on Poached Eggs. Get finely chopped parsley, that has been sauteed in butter, water and verjuice and boil these together. Set out your sops on platters, then your eggs and your broth over top.
My version…
I gathered the parsley, eggs, verjuice, bread, and butter called for in the recipe. Chopped the parsley fine and let the eggs come to room temperature before cooking.
I started by putting a pot of water on to boil for poaching my eggs. Next I melted butter in a frying pan and then adding the chopped parsley. Once the parsley was cooked I added the verjuice and water and set it to boil.
Once the egg poaching water reached a boil I added a small amount of vinegar. This helps the egg white set and keeps the spreading to a minimum. I cracked an egg into a small bowl and just before dropping it in I swirled the water to create a small whirlpool. The swirling water will help the egg come together as well. I then slowly dropped the egg into the middle of the whirlpool. I used a wooden spoon to help the egg white stay close to the yolk while it set. full cooking time was about 3 minutes.
While the egg was cooking I toasted the bread for the sops. The recipe doesn’t state if the bread is toasted or not but with the sauce for the dish added being very thing I decided to toast the bread so it didn’t get mushy. Once the egg was cooked I set it on the sops and then poured the parsley sauce over it. since the recipe says that the sops were set on platters rather than in bowls I only added enough of the sauce to soak through the bread.
The Verdict…
This a a great little dish. The parsley and verjuice keep it from being bland and the butter added the perfect amount of fat. The sauce soaked into the sops and softened the bread but it didn’t get mushy. The poached egg was great for this dish. The egg yolk ran onto the sops and mixed with the sauce. I can absolutely imagine this for a nice breakfast.
When I make this again I may use a bit more sauce. I like the bite of the verjuice on the egg.