UnRecipe: Welcome to Egg-Thunderdome, Extra Bacon Please

"Two men enter. One man leaves." So sayeth the law of Thunderdome, a post-apocalyptic view of a savage future ruled by Tina Turner in a wicked chain mail evening gown with Aqua Net hair up to the heavens. And there's Mel "Mad Max" Gibson running around somewhere in all this, but when it comes to Thunderdome, it's all about Aunty Entity and her rag-tag band of pure crazytown. Dystopia met suburbia a few weeks ago when I made breakfast for a friend and created Egg Thunderdome, where many were sacrified in the almighty name of Breakfast. We don't need another hero, we just want some freakin' poached eggs.

Two eggs enter, one and a half left! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I had promised a homemade breakfast for a friend and she was good enough to make the trek out to Middle of Nowheresville Duvall. She was game to have anything, which meant a MacGyver-like meal of whatever the CSA box had delivered that week. I made a crazy vegetable hash of onions, rainbow chard, mushrooms and spinach. Not particularly inspired, but we both love our veggies and they were delicious with a roasted pepper sauce and some eggs. One notable ingredient I'd never worked with before were sunchokes, aka Jerusalem artichokes. They're funny little root vegetables, apparenty related to the daisy -- the plants bloom with a flower that looks just like a yellow daisy. They look like a cross between ginger and potatoes, stubby little root-knots that need a really good scrub to get the dirt off, and they can be eaten raw or cooked. The flavor is similar to an artichoke, sort of mossy and fresh, but with a root vegetable texture. I've had them sliced thin and fried, made into sunchoke chips, which are wonderful snacks. I didn't have any potatoes, so I used the sunchokes the way you would the typical tuber, cleaned, diced and pan-seared. They were mixed in with the vegetable hash and softened. In this mix, their flavor wasn't particularly pronounced, but I didn't have many sunchokes to work with. If I wind up with more than a handful, I'd definitely want to try something else, like maybe shredding them, forming into pancakes and frying them up. I think the artichoke flavor would be more noticeable and they would taste perfect with a lemon-herb aioli. But we'll save that thought for another meal -- Thunderdome waits for no one.

Breakfast hash with CSA goodness and sunchokes - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Stuff got Real when I was trying some different methods to poach eggs. I know poaching eggs isn't difficult, it's a basic cooking method everyone should probably know, and while I've done it in the traditional low simmering water with vinegar, my poached eggs always look like a righteous mess. I've tried steaming eggs in oiled ramekins, letting indirect heat do the poaching -- this works, but you get oddly perfect shaped egg-pucks, since they form to the shape of the little bowls they cooked in. I've tried methods using the microwave, but that feels like Egg Deer Hunter -- sometimes it's fine, but sometimes it's a catastrophic mess, and that's stressful.

The low-heat, slow cooking method of sous vide has of course been all the rage these last few years, and for good reason, you get some really tender results from low temperature cooking. I looked at an old copy of Lucky Peach, the magazine put out by Momofuku's resident food-wizard, David Chang. He had this lovely article about slow-poached eggs. He described cooking the eggs in their shells using indirect heat, either a funky balancing act using double bowls in simmering water, or a steam basket. I tried the steam basket method but to Chang's point, he said it's hard to control the heat of the water on the stove -- you need really consistent low heat, like 60-65 degrees, which is crazy-low. My burners kept on their lowest setting, even using the steam basket, still overcooked the eggs for the most part. This is where Thunderdome came in -- several eggs entered the metal realm of battle, and very few made it to the breakfast plate. Not that the overcooked eggs were thrown out -- it just meant we had a bunch of soft-boiled eggs for the week.

This was by no means a failure. We still enjoyed oddly-cooked eggs over our breakfast hash, the meal was toasted with some lovely bubbles. I went for a straight-up raw egg yolk over my hash because I'm gangstah that way and it looked pretty for the photo. Despite the less-than-perfect results, it still got me thinking of other ways to slow-poach eggs in the shell without having a sous vide cooker. Heaven knows I don't need another gadget in an already overstuffed kitchen. I'm thinking of doing this again using a crock pot set to low, filled with water and a steamer basket set inside with some eggs. The worst that happens is I wind up with more soft-boiled eggs, but if it works, I'll definitely post the results. Consider Egg Thunderdome a work in progress!

Celebrating Egg Thunderdome in style, with classy bubbles - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Mixed Plate: Ham, Eggs, Tulips and Not Paying Retail

Easter weekend came and went, which had me thinking about favorite things about the holiday -- the childhood joy of coloring eggs and the resulting Technicolor Dreamcoat-hued egg salad that completely skeeved me out, the giant chocolate bunnies I'd receive from family or friends and the savage joy of biting off those ears first. Everyone knows it's the part that tastes best. Even the annual eating of Peeps -- well, more like one Peep. I'd wind up with a package, thinking this will be the year I develop an appreciation for those marshmallow sugar-coated little cuties. I take a bite, it feels like you're eating packing material dipped in sand, and I throw the rest away, completely disgusted with myself for being an idiot to think this year would be any different. The old traditions have gone by the wayside in lieu of new ones, namely hitting the casino for brunch and browsing the outlet malls. What would Jesus do? Apparently, not pay retail.

The Easter miracle - tulips before retail - Photo by Wasabi Prime

The Prime didn't totally make a mockery of the Easter holiday -- well, just a half-mockery -- as I managed to fit in a visit to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. Quite honestly, it's one of the most stunning things you'll ever see, driving up north towards Everett and being suddenly inundated with fields of solid color. It's literally like a rainbow punched you in the face. Rows and rows of bright yellow daffodils, alternating rows of tulips in warm orange, reds and pinks; it's a beautiful sight, even on the grey, blustery Easter Sunday I was in the neighborhood.

Tiptoeing and trespassing through the tulips - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I didn't have my big camera with me because the original intent of the trip was a heathen-filled day of casino buffet-eating and outlet mall shopping, but an Easter miracle allowed my dinky phone camera to take photos of the tulip fields that didn't look like total garbage. If confession is good for the soul, I should be totally up front in that the only reason we wound up in beautiful fields of flowers on the Lord's Day was the shops weren't open yet and we had a couple of hours to kill. Along with trespassing in a daffodil field clearly marked NO TRESPASSING and taking photos, my partners in crime and I managed to escape the incoming rain as we tiptoed through the tulips at a garden that actually invited visitors to tromp through their fields. Somebody up there liked us and approved of our retail pre-func with the flowers.

So that's what happened to ABBA - Photos by Wasabi Prime

You'll discover tulips you never knew existed, in rare colors, shapes and sizes, and you'll likely make it a point to visit the area every year. While this April was unusually cold and not as many fields were ablaze with blooms, it was still a thing of beauty. My friend Stacie, aka, SJBe, was sweet to get me a bouquet of favorite tulips to bring home as a souvenir, which I must say, tulips and bulbs in general are the best blooms for lazy folks like myself. They're hearty, they last longer than most flowers, and the just scream springtime cheerfulness. The colorful romp in the garden fueled us with energy to battle the crowds at the outlet mall, which if there was a soundtrack for the day, we'd have had Tiny Tim's quirky "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" for the first part and GNR's "Welcome to the Jungle" for the outlet malls. You know where you are? You're in the jungle bably, you're gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiie. So sayeth the wisdom of Axl Rose.

Can you find the Easter eggs? - Photos by Wasabi Prime

After a long day of weathering the retail masses and not even having the satisfaction of finding anything worth buying beyond a cup of coffee, I peaced-out Easter Sunday with Brinner (breakfast for dinner). I bought a ham for no other reason than it was 99 cents a pound and I could freeze the meat and save the bone for split pea soup. Day of rest, remember? The feast of Easter Brinner was composed of poached eggs over a hash of ham and sweet potatoes, using a method of poaching eggs that I was happy to discover via Bon Appetit magazine. They had a quickie microwave trick, cracking an egg into a cup of water, enough to cover the top of the egg, and giving the egg-water mix a spin in the microwave for a minute, with a saucer placed over the top, presumably to focus the heat and make for an especially clattering ruckus should the egg explode. Luckily, there was no eggs-plosion (har har), but I admit, I over-microwaved the egg, resulting in more of a soft-boiled stage than truly poached. The method is sound, I just need to fuss with the timing on my microwave a little, but I was pleased to find such an easy shortcut method for preparing eggs in my favorite way. I have a lot more leftover ham to perfect the nuke-time on my microwave, so despite Easter having hopped along like Peter Cottontail, the joy of eggs will remain.

On/Off Recipe: Gabba-Gabba-Donna Hay!

I have a love for magazines that the digital world will never quite take the place of. There's something really satisfying about curling up with a furl of printed pages that a laptop cannot capture, and to be truthful, I hope books and magazines never go the way of 8-tracks and sock garters. That being said, one of my favorite food magazines is Donna Hay, its namesake being the Austrailian equivalent of Ruth Reichl or Martha Stewart, in terms of her ability to present food and lifestyle in a visually appealing, don't-you-just-envy-my-life kind of way. The food is simple and familiar, the production quality of the photos are divine, and it's just a really solid magazine full of foundation cooking recipes that's worth a free flip-thru when you're browsing (aka, loitering) in the Borders magazine aisle. It was a great inspiration piece, whose breakfast dishes and a roasted tarragon chicken recipe pushed me into the kitchen, so with the fury and fire of the Ramones, I said, hey-ho... let's go!

Be honest, it's way better than Wheaties - photo by Wasabi Prime

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Especially when it's covered in hollandaise sauce. I was egged-on (har har) by Donna's Eggs Florentine photo and recipe. I liked the idea of combining the poached eggs with spinach, as runny eggs and wilted greens are an edible experiment gone horribly right. Confession time: I didn't follow St. Donna's recipe to the letter. I skipped the toast and added some bits of pan-crisped proscuitto to the wilted spinach. And even more of a serious foodie trespass, I cheated on the hollandaise, going with a shortcut from Bon Appétit magazine, for a "mock hollandaise" sauce. Don't chase me out of food blogdom with pitchforks, people -- it was still a savory rich sauce, the eggs were poached to lovely gooey-ness, and it was served within the walls of our humble household, where Brock won't look down upon me if I take a shortcut now and then, God bless him!

Donna Hay magazine - totally worth the import price - photos (of magazine) by Wasabi Prime

I attempted to make up for my shortcut sins and made her Chicken with Mushrooms and Tarragon recipe for dinner. For something that looks like it would take several hours, it's relatively fast. It uses skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, which makes the finished chickadee quite moist and tender. I know it's tempting to substitute this recipe with breast meat since it's low-fat, but it's also low-flavor, and can get dry as all get-out, so don't skimp on this one, as a lot of the richness and flavor will come from the chicken.

Winner winner, tarragon chicken dinner - photo by Wasabi Prime

The final cooked dish would have been enough on its own, but I was leering at the kale chips on Lorna Yee's Cookbook Chronicles , featuring a recipe by way of chef Dan Barbar. I made a last minute decision, confirmed by the two-for-one special on kale at the store. Once separating the dry, papery leaves from the tough center rib, the leaves were tossed with a barely-there drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt/pepper before baking. It took a couple of batches per head of kale, as the leaves got all crispety-crunchety when they had ample space around them for the heat to scorch the bejeebus out of them.

Hot chicks and crispy veggie chips - Photos by Wasabi Prime

The final result produced a satisfying meal for a home cook like myself who inevitably colors outside the recipe lines, sometimes to much FoodFail. To entice others to stay on-recipe, I included the Donna Hay recipes below. I think you'll be as pleased as I was with the results, as it made for a great Oh Donna weekend!

Eggs Florentine
4 free-range eggs
20g butter
120g baby spinach leaves
Toasted sourdough or rye bread and cracked black pepper, to serve

Lemon Hollandaise
150g butter, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 free-range egg yolks
Sea salt flakes

To make the lemon hollandaise, place the butter and lemon juice in a saucepan over medium heat and cook for 2-3 minutes or until melted and bubbling. Place the egg yolks and salt in the bowl of a small food processor. With the motor running, slowly add the hot butter mixture and process until thick. Set aside and keep warm.

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Add the eggs and cook for 6 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and run under cold water. Carefully peel and set aside. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over high heat. Add the spinach and cook for 2-3 minutes or until just wilted. Top the toast with the spinach and eggs. Spoon over hollandaise and sprinkle with pepper to serve. Serves 4.

Chicken with mushroom and tarragon
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 X 150g chicken thighs, skin on and bone in
Sea salt and cracked black pepper
300g speck* or flat pancetta, chopped
8 sprigs tarragon
3 cloves garlic, chopped
½ teaspoon chili flakes
200g Swiss brown or Portobello mushrooms, halved (4 large portobellos, sliced into bite-sized pieces)
1/3 cup (80ml) dry sherry
1 ¼ cups (310 ml) single (pouring) cream

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (355 degrees F). Heat oil in a heatproof heavy-based baking dish over high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper and cook, skin-side down, for 3 minutes or until browned. Remove from dish and keep warm. Add the speck and tarragon and cook for 3-5 minutes or until golden. Add the garlic, chilli, mushroom and pepper and cook for 5-8 minutes or until golden. Add sherry and cream, return chicken to the dish, cover with aluminium foil and roast for 15 minutes. Remove foil and roast for a further 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Serves 6-8. *Speck is smoked pork, usually sold in a slab from delicatessens.

* Post Script: Thanks to Foodie View for posting both breakfast and lunch, as inspired by Donna Hay! Additional delicious thanks to Tastespotting for putting the seared chicken thigh pic on their site! Additional thanks still to Serious Eats' Photograzing, for doing a quadruple whammy post of pics on their om-nommy site.