Poached Eggs With Potatoes & Cecina

Throughout Spain, and certainly in Asturias, meal habits are much different than in the States. You always hear about how no one in Spain eats breakfast. Or you hear about two hour lunches every day, or dinner served at 10:30 at night. All of these are true to one extent or another. I don’t know anyone in Spain that regularly makes French toast or poached eggs for breakfast. But they do not tell the whole story.

When people eat certain meals. What the culturally acceptable or “normal” foods to eat at each meal are. All of these things differ from what an American is used to. Nowhere is that more obvious than breakfast foods. On the surface it seems Spain has very little to offer in the breakfast foods category. But that ignores the less-known fact that most of what an American eats for breakfast shows up on the Spanish dinner plate. Some variation on eggs and potatoes is a staple of dinner here, and perfect for turning into brunch food.

Inspiration

This is a riff on a staple weeknight dinner across Spain – huevos con jamón. There are a ton of variations on this simple supper depending on region, family, or personal tastes. But the basic form remains the same. It is a plate of potatoes with a couple of cooked eggs and some cured ham on top. Some people use french fries, some use boiled or poached potatoes. Other people scramble their eggs with the ham. Still others dice the ham and fold it into the eggs, like a Denver omelette.

My version is designed around being moved from Spanish supper to American brunch – that meal I didn’t know I loved so much until it was no longer available to me. Two classic brunch items – home fries and poached eggs – tag in for their Spanish counterparts. Asturian cecina replaces the jamón.

Perfect Home Fries

The key to perfect fried potatoes, whether you call them home fries, skillet potatoes, or diner potatoes (just don’t call them hash browns), is cooking your potatoes twice. Raw potato tossed into your frying pan will never cook properly. They will crisp too fast, and be burnt outside before the inside is soft. So, for perfect home fries you must boil your potatoes first. This also allows you to use regular white potatoes for your fries. The lack of russet, or any other high moisture content fluffy potato in Spain drove me to this realization. Under-cook the potatoes slightly when boiling, and they will finish perfectly in the frying pan.

Perfect Poached Eggs

To make perfect poached eggs, you need only a few things. You need some hot water, a splash of vinegar, a room temperature egg, a clock or timer, and a ladle. There are a ton of “helpful” posts on the internet claiming to have the secret to cooking the perfect poached egg. They are mostly wrong, or at least extraneous. The reason there is so much advice on poaching eggs is that they are almost entirely a matter of technique, not equipment or ingredients. And technique requires practice. A lot of practice. If you poach a couple hundred eggs every Sunday morning for a couple of years, like a cook in a restaurant that serves brunch does, you will be able to poach an egg perfectly every time while carrying on a conversation, having a coffee, and choosing some music to play next.

The rest of us need to pay more close attention to our technique. There is a movement of the wrist when cracking an egg into the boiling water that is nearly impossible to teach, and absolutely impossible to explain in prose. Therefore, we use a ladle. Cracking the egg into the ladle then slowly lowering the ladle into the water will allow the wispy edges of the egg white to set without blooming out away from the yolk. Vinegar in the water helps to coagulate the proteins a bit faster, which also helps to set the white in a nice pillow around the yolk. The timer is set for 4 minutes, because we haven’t done this a million times and do not have a sixth sense for when an egg is done.

Ingredients

• 800 g white potatoes.
• 100 g cecina.
• 8 large eggs.

Instructions

1. Ahead of time, you need to boil and cool your potatoes. If you are making this dish for a brunch, I suggest prepping the potatoes the night before. Potatoes that have chilled overnight in the refrigerator consistently produce the best home fries for me.
   1. Boil your peeled potatoes in salted water until almost done.
   2. Drain and cool at least to room temperature, if not chilled.
   3. Immediately before cooking, cut the potatoes into nice sized rough chunks. 3cm is a good size.
2. In a large skillet – cast iron if you have it – heat a couple of tablespoons of neutral oil over medium high heat until shimmering.
3. On another stove eye, set a pot of water at least 10cm (4 in) deep (though the deeper the better really) on high heat.
4. Add your potatoes to the pan, toss in some salt and pepper, and toss to coat them. I then toss the pan a couple times throughout the cooking process. I prefer an evenly crisped potato. The total time should be about 10 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, between shakes of your potatoes:
   1. When your water boils, splash in some vinegar. The kind doesn’t matter, so use whatever is at hand.
   2. Crack an egg into your long handled ladle and gently lower the ladle into the water with the egg in it. When the top of the egg white starts to go white (a second or two only) tip the egg out of the ladle into the water.
   3. Repeat for the other eggs, never crowding the eggs in the water. I find it easiest to do them in batches of four or less eggs.
6. When your potatoes are done, dump them onto a paper towel and pat them once to get the excess oil off.
7. Arrange them on small plates and sprinkle them with pimentón or paprika.
8. Set two poached eggs on top of each plate of potatoes.
9. Tear little pieces of your cecina off and sprinkle them around the plate as well.
10. With the tip of a sharp knife, slit the tops of you eggs until they open up.
11. Grind a little black pepper over the whole dish and serve immediately.