The Arzak Egg

What I have for you today is something I had wanted to try for some time. I'm not sure what finally got me off my ass to make this, but I'm happy I did. So, without further ado, allow me to introduce you to The Arzak Egg.

If you are wondering what the hell an Arzak egg is, don't worry, it's not some freakish egg pooped out by some endangered animal. It's really just a poached egg. The reason I'm using a different name for it is because the technique was made famous by Spanish chef Juan Mari Arzak.

So, what is this technique? If you want to get technical, it's like the sous vide process. In simpler terms, you are cooking the egg in hot water while the egg is wrapped in plastic wrap. Let me show you what I'm talking about.

The first thing you do is layout some plastic wrap. From here, you can rub a little butter in the center, approximately where the egg is going to be. You can add salt, pepper, and any other herb you want the egg to cook with.

From here, line a small bowl with the plastic wrap, making sure to get that buttery area at the bottom. Drop in the egg and proceed to close up the plastic wrap around the egg. You want to get as much of the air out of the pouch as you can. You can tie off the pouch with either cooking twine or another piece of plastic wrap. I just made a string out of plastic wrap and tied it off.

Now that my pouches are set, it was time to get started on the rest of the plate. As much as I like eggs, I needed a little something else to go with it. And what goes hand in hand with eggs? BACON, OF COURSE!!

Honestly, with the plate up I had in mind, I only needed 1 slice of bacon. But who in the fuck only cooks one slice of bacon? Not this guy!!! Don't worry, the other two slices found a happy home...in my belly!

While the bacon was cooking, I chopped up some Thai basil, chives, and a little roma tomato.

At this point, the only things I had left to do was to poach the eggs and make the toast. The toast would only take a minute or two, so I got going on the eggs.

While a traditional poached egg takes about 3-5 minutes, the Arzak egg takes about 5-7 minutes. When the water got to a warm simmer, I dropped the pouches into the water. They both sank like rocks to the bottom. I didn't want to play with them, so I just let them sit for about 3 or 4 minutes before I moved them a little.

While the eggs were going, I went ahead and made the toast. I cut the crust off of a slice of bread and toasted it in a pan with butter and dried sage.

At about 5 minutes, I went to pull the eggs from the water. I used tongs to grab the loose plastic from the top of the pouch. I lifted one out of the water to give it a squeeze and test how firm it is. It still felt a bit soft, so back in the water it went. When I tried the second egg, it fell right out of the plastic! My initial reaction was simply yelling "FUCK!" at a fairly loud volume. Then, I realized that the egg was holding it's shape and no yolk had spilled into the water. So, I just proceeded as planned and finished at 7 minutes.

With the eggs done, it was time to plate up. Before I get to that, I do have to mention that there was one item I made the night before and didn't get any pics of. That would be a chianti reduction. What I did was pretty simple: Take one cup of chianti wine and about 2-3 tablespoons of sugar and slowly cook down the wine until it reduces to a syrup. That's it. If it's too thick when it cools down, just add a tiny bit of more wine or water to it to thin it out.

When plating, I started by drizzling the sauce on the plate first. Then, I sliced the toast square in half to make triangles and set those on the plate. Herbs, tomato and bacon pieces went down next.

Now it was time for the star of this show, the eggs. The eggs sat atop the toast. On top of the eggs, I put a tiny bit of salt & pepper, with a thin drizzle of EVOO. Lastly, the chives on top of the eggs. And that's it!!!

The real test is to see if that yolk is nice and runny. I wasn't too nervous cutting into it, but I wasn't 100% either. When I cut into it, this is what I saw:

It came out exactly as I imagined in my head. I took a bite with the egg, toast and sauce, and it was awesome. The chianti reduction was a little tangy and a little sweet. It added a nice balance to the richness of the yolk and buttery toast. The Thai basil and tomatoes were great co-stars in this wonderful production. The crispy bacon bits gave that nice element of crunch and saltiness. And the chives....shit, you can't go wrong with chives!

I felt like I really made an idea turn into reality with this one. It doesn't happen often for me, but when it does, it does feel good. What felt even better was some of the reactions I got when I posted this on Instagram(my handle is @chefjmiller726). A few people asked if I made this or if I ordered it at restaurant. To me, that's a huge compliment. While I try not to fish for compliments, it's always nice to get positive feedback.

In the end, I like this technique for poaching eggs. If you have ever had trouble with poaching eggs the traditional way, give this a try. You might just like it. A lot.

I'm out.

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