Friday, July 18, 2014

FFWD Coddled Eggs with Faux Gras


A few months ago, when there was a lot of talk among the FFWD group about making two foie gras recipes, I started looking into alternatives.  The varieties of meat I eat are very limited, and foie gras isn't one of them.  It turns out that there are lots of options on the internet, and for reasons I don't remember I settled on this one, which uses chickpeas as the base and relies on caramelized onion, more butter, tawny port, and capers for flavor.  I wanted to cook the chickpeas from scratch, so I started this recipe a couple of days ahead of time, but that was by far the hardest part.  Once I started it the faux gras was a breeze, and the coddled eggs were easy enough.  I accidentally ran out of cream so I used buttermilk instead, and I overcooked my eggs, but those were entirely my mistakes.  Just as the water came to a simmer and I set up the steamer for the eggs we lost power.  I checked the eggs (with a flashlight) at 5 minutes and the whites didn't seem like they had set at all so I let them keep going.  I kept checking every few minutes, but I think the flashlight may have been misleading because they never seemed set.  By the time I served the eggs, the yolks were set too.  Oh well.  We enjoyed these (in the dark!  we didn't get our power back until the next morning) with tomatoes and potato salad.  Paul said the faux gras didn't taste at all like the real thing, but it was good on its own.  This is definitely a recipe I could see myself making again.

11 comments:

  1. Your faux gras sounds delicious. I think thos would have been good, set yolks or not.

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  2. That is an interesting recipe with the chickpeas. I'll bet it would make a good dip
    for chips or crackers. It was difficult enough to determine when the eggs were done, but to attempt that without power, Wow. I give you a lot of credit on that
    one.

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  3. My goodness. I think you win the prize for perserverance this week! Way to stick it out. I had trouble coddling my eggs as well, but I don't have a power failure which I can blame. I apparently just need more practice.

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  4. I agree! If prizes are being given you deserve one! Your faux gras is intriguing. I just went with ham and cheese. I overcooked one of my eggs too. They're tricky to get just right!

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  5. Dear Jora, this is the first that I have heard about a faux foie gras - sounds quite intriguing to me! You certainly invested a lot of time amd effort into this recipe - and had to deal with a power failure to boot - respect! A slad with potatoes and tomatoes alongside sounds like a fabulous idea!
    Have a wonderful Sunday!
    Andrea

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  6. Wow, Jora, you are one determinbed young lady. I have never known there was a faux foie gras. I would probably love it because I really don't know what the real thing tastes like. I've had it 2 or 3 times but my memory of what it tastes like is gone. I did have power and I overcooked my eggs all on my own. My dish was sorta hard-boiled rather than coddled.

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  7. I can not even believe the effort you went through to do this recipe and do it so well. I was already impressed at the chickpea effort and by the time I got to the flashlight I had decided you are officially my hero. Well done. And very cool, by the way, about the chickpea sub. Love it. May next week be WAY easier...

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  8. Well, you certainly win for most creative adaptation! And most determined as Mary said! Glad it was good :)

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  9. Jora,
    Glad that the trouble you took to make the chickpea sub rewarded you well!

    EmilyC

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  10. You definitely get extra points for cooking through the power outage. I found it confusing to tell when the whites were cooked because the cream we drizzled on the whites was white. That would have been even harder to distinguish in the dark. The faux gras sounds like an interesting spread, regardless of what you were substituting for.

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  11. Oh, I like the idea of a chick pea version. That sounds delicious.
    Power outages are aggravating aren't they? They always seem to happen when I am in the middle of baking something...

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