Easy Eggs Florentine With Sweet Potato Leaves

Strictly speaking à la florentine is a method of preparing eggs or fish on a bed of spinach cooked in butter and with a covering of Mornay sauce. However, as I don't like spinach and am not that keen on flour-based sauces, this is an alternative version. As an aside, I also love growing Ipomoea or morning glories of which the edible version is the sweet potato and in North Western France I have better chance of a good crop of leaves, than tubers. I also have a garden full of chickens, so egg recipes are no problem!

For each person/guest (this makes a great party dish) you will need:

1 very fresh egg

1 generous handful of sweet potato leaves

1 globe artichoke

1 small to medium red onion

1 heaped dessertspoon of raw cream

1" cube of hard cheese such as Emmental, Gruyère or Cheddar - grated

Butter for cooking

Turmeric and paprika for sprinkling

Salt and pepper

This recipe uses just the heart of the artichoke but reserve the leaves to use with a dip such as guacamole.

There are many ways of preparing and cooking artichokes, including trimming them. I just rinse mine and put them in a large saucepan of boiling water with the heads facing downwards and cook until the leaves come away easily when pulled. This happens at around about 15 minutes of boiling.

Remove the artichokes with a slotted spoon and leave to cool.

Pull off all the leaves and set aside for another dish.

Holding onto the stem carefully insert a sharp knife between the choke (the fluffy petal part of the flower) and the solid green heart. or you can simple pull away sections of the choke with your fingers.

Flip over the artichoke and trim off the stalk.

The artichoke heart can now be cut into bite size pieces.

Wash the leaves and depending on the age you can either use them whole (young tender leaves) or chop the older ones.

Slice and dice the red onion.

In a frying pan, sauté the onion in butter until just beginning to soften.

Add the sweet potato leaves and cook, stirring constantly until tender.

Place in warming draw or in a low oven to keep warm.

Poached eggs are best when they are really fresh, so if like me you have hens, then you will have perfect poached eggs - if you can find them!

Place a medium sized pan, half-filled with water on the stove and heat until boiling - the water should have bubbles.

Remove from the heat.

Break eggs one at a time into a shallow dish.

Carefully slide each egg into the water by approaching the bowl so the egg almost floats in. I usually don't like to poach more than three eggs at a time, this way they are in no danger of colliding in the pan.

Simmer very gently (few to no bubbles) for around 3 to 4 minutes.

Whilst the eggs are poaching, place a circle of artichoke heart pieces around the edge of a heated white plate and sprinkle small circles of paprika and turmeric in between.

Place a mound of sautéed sweet potato leaves and onion in the middle of the plate.

Put the poached egg on top.

Add a dollop of raw cream, topped with grated cheese and sprinkle with turmeric and paprika.

Serve immediately.

Provide salt and pepper for your guests to use as they wish.

Enjoy!

Pictured some of my other but non-edible ipomoea.

If you have enjoyed this recipe and found it useful think about sharing it with your family and friends, on social media and also maybe about joining this blog and/or subscribing to my Youtube, Odysee  or BitChute Channel or even supporting us on Patreon or

It all helps to keep me going!

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from an old farmhouse in Normandie,

All the very best,
Sue

©  Sue Cross 2022

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Left a still from 'The Case of the Curious Bride', filmed in 1935 and starring the wonderful Warren William as Perry Mason. The establishment shots have Perry and the Coroner choosing crabs for crabe à la bordelaise which later, due to a deficit in the wine cellar, turns into à la chablisienne. I will hopefully be making this recipe too but in the meantime there's  E.F. Benson's  crabe à la Riseholme

With the arrival of the title character and the machinations of crime, Perry and his friends finish their gourmet meal with café royale a variation of Parisienne or French Coffee, probably with Bourbon or Cognac, in the morgue!

Rex Stout, however with Nero Wolfe, took the gastronome sleuth to a whole new level and with each case playing out against a background of cordon bleu meals and vociferous arguments with his chef Fritz. One case in particular; 'Murder is Corny' hinges upon Wolfe's fine understanding of the optimum time for harvesting sweet corn. This is reminiscent of an earlier confrere, Mr Sherlock Holmes who remarked in 'The Adventure of the Six Napoleons' :

"You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day."

Like Holmes, Wolfe is a person of incredible self-belief, he will brook no argument as to his ability and opinions, his recipes, 40 minute scrambled eggs included, demand a similar blind faith from the reader too.

“Shucked and boiled in water, sweet corn is edible and nutritious; roasted in the husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef's ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish.”

 

Nevertheless, the first time I ever made this recipe I was very happy to be using sweet corn which was free, gratis and for nothing from the box of debris I get from  my local organic shop. The reason for ambrosia ending up in the trash being, that in rural France, people don't really go for sweet corn on the husk. Two decades ago when I inadvertently mentioned another roasted favourite of ours,  I was told unceremoniously that: 'parsnips are for pigs'. Similarly a great percentage of maize grown in this country is processed in situ at harvest, with the whole plant finely chopped up and carried off to be made into silage. Times change however and not only are parsnips now sold at our organic shop and people buy and eat them but French friends even recommend them to me.

Last year, when I was first considering making Wolfe's corn recipe, I was thinking that at that high a temperature, if I ended up with burnt corn, at least we would not be  out of pocket. I should have known though that Nero Wolfe was right, after all, in his books Rex Stout has him constantly reminding us of the fact. Like Holmes with his parsley, Wolfe understood the science involved, in that the corn had to be exactly at the correct level of moisture on picking so as to roast and steam to perfection. Ambrosia was/is the right description for this dish of roasted corn. Sadly though when I went back to the shop, there was no corn to be had, the season being so short. So I've had to wait until this year to make it again. Even so there were only 10 ears on offer and I bagged 2, which at Euros 1.40 a piece is not surprising.

I cooked mine at 230°C - 450°F although I have read of others going up to 550°F - 290°C! However, I find that the former temperature works well and anyway we have a woodcooker and hand-saw our wood so there's no point in making more work than is needed. After 40 minutes you just follow Wolfe's advice, add butter and sink your teeth into..ambrosia.

From the image above I deduce that two people have just eaten Nero Wolfe's delicious roasted corn.

If you've enjoyed this recipe and would like to comment and/or share it on social media, please feel free to do so. I would also like to hear from anyone who also has an interest in cooking recipes from literature and films.

I hope you will join me here again for another recipe from an old farm house in Normandie in the meantime all the very best,

Sue

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©  Sue Cross 2019