Eggs Boitelle is another Kitchen repertoire special - incredibly simple, but requires some quite difficult cooking techniques.
Basically - a bit of bread with a timbale shape of cooked egg inside a mushroom case, with a mushroom sauce. Sounds easy - making the thing is slightly more difficult. Mushrooms - what can you say. Some people are very lucky and have access to amazing mushrooms. I don’t - unless I drive a very long way for very expensive wild packs. Occasionally I do get lucky with wild mushrooms found locally - but its rare. So the supermarket has to be my main source. Large portobello are really good and now Asda and I suspect other supermarkets are selling mixed variety packs that contain oyster, sep and Shitake mushrooms. These are really good.
Ingredients :
Bread - I use a slice of sourdough toasted to preference.
Mushrooms - I used Asda small Portobello here
An egg
Sauce : Velouté of Mushroom
Flour and butter for roux
Mushroom stock to thicken or veg stock etc
Mixed mushrooms chopped - again Asda mixed mushroom bag
Method :
Make the sauce
I make a simple roux. Then thicken with a stock. You could add plenty of stuff here, like mushroom ketchup to give it a kick, or chicken stock etc - there are lots of choices to add some flavour. Personally I prefer to let the taste of the mushrooms shine through by cooking it a bit. Sauce consistency - should be thin but not runny. Being made with a roux its prone to being gloppy - a technical term I use. Sauces should not be gloppy. Like that soup you get in a Chinese restaurant.
Main dish
This is quite tricky. You thinly slice portobello and fry in butter. Take a small ramekin shape and then when the mushrooms have cooled completely line the shape with butter, and stick a shell of mushrooms to the side. Then crack your egg into it. Done.
Cooking the eggs - I made a mistake here, I should have poached them really, but as I have earthenware ramekins they really insulate so cooking takes ages and I used an oven to bake them which is more unpredictable. Ideally you would use a metal timbale shape, then cook them in a water bath. I still managed two soft yolks out of three - not too bad.
Ideal drink :
Its very buttery and mushrooms have quite a distinct flavour - OJ will do, but something a bit richer like pomegranate juice is good.
