Republic Day Eggs

Funny name for eggs, I know. Thing is, firstly, I made them on [a day after actually] Republic Day. Secondly, and this is stretching it a bit, these eggs are free from the traditional bondage/dominion of buttered toast. If you believed that, good! If you didn’t, actually, I couldn’t think of any other name for it.

The sauce on its own is quite ok, but not spectacular. The eggs – normal. Put them together however, and you have a mouthful of silky eggs, with all the character of eggs, a little bite of lemon and the flavor of thyme. Good!

Here’s how you do it. First, make the first stage of Batarde Sauce (briskly whisk 20g butter, 20g flour, 8 fl oz salted boiling water – add a teaspoon of lemon juice and one egg yolk). Set aside. Fry a finely chopped onion in 20g butter, when soft add 20ml plum wine, 1 teaspoon dried thyme, 1 tsp tabasco, dash of pepper and simmer for 5 minutes, add the batarde sauce and simmer for another 10 minutes. In the meanwhile, boil some water, bring three eggs to room temperature, add them to the boiling water and keep in there for 3 minutes and then another 3 minutes after switching off the heat. Remove, cool, peel, set aside. Back to the sauce. Grate some parmesan/grana padano into the sauce and take off the heat.

To serve: Put some sauce on a plate. Spread. Put a soft boiled egg in the centre. Slice the egg down the middle and gently separate so the partially liquid yolk flows out. Garnish with
some dried, crumbled thyme.

The interesting thing about this is that Cherie [my daughter], usually finicky about what goes down her throat, finished her serving in a thrice!