Wednesday, April 7, 2010

What came first: the chicken or the egg?! (the mushrooms!!)

After multiple sources of inspiration about poached eggs, I began to think of them as silky and appealing though I had yet to have them. The March MS Everyday Food "How To" is all about poaching eggs. One evening, watching some late night programming, dissatisfied with whatever I had (or had not) eaten for dinner I decided why not try to poach my first egg!
I did and the result was exactly the silken smooth goodness Julie Powell raved about after enjoying her FIRST egg ever -- prepared by poaching in red wine, a la Julia Child, of course.
The following evening I prepared a batch of duxelles to keep in the freezer, using Judith Jones' good advice, and decided to prepare some chicken legs (in the duxelles pan) and make a pan sauce with chicken stock and some of the mushrooms and serve it over some boston lettuce with a poached egg. Very satisfying!
The more I cook the more I learn. End results for a lot of food preparation seem so impressive that without ever knowing the technique they can be intimidating to even imagine cooking. Again, fearlessness in the kitchen is one of the best tools any chef can have! The worst that can happen usually won't and the worst that is likely to happen is that one prepares something inedible. Trial & error-- without fear!!

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