It's like when we're children and our mother decides to make something new for dinner, or something she hasn't made in a while. We sit down at the table and ask, "What are we having?" And, upon hearing the answer, we usually make some sort of scene: "Awwww, but I hate peas!"
The one food I just could not tolerate growing up was a pile of blanched peas. I would unwillingly sit at the kitchen table for hours, long after everyone else had moved on to dishes and toys and bath time, staring at my uneaten peas and willing them to disappear. I always lost the battle.
Or when my mom made a mushroom pasta dish for the first time. I sat there and defiantly stated, "I hate mushrooms," to which she replied, "How do you know if you've never even tried them?"
"Because I have, and I hate them."
If some advocate for fried eggs had been following me around for all these years, their campaign would have sounded similar to this. Of course I've never tried fried eggs, just like I'd never tried mushrooms. Perhaps it was something about the way the yolk, when stabbed with a fork, would ooze onto the plate and cover whatever was underneath it with a filmy yellow sauce. I found the idea of eating undercooked eggs creepy, and saw no reason to pursue a relationship with them. I just... hated them.
I don't know what changed, all of a sudden. I came upon this recipe for Olive-Oil-Fried Eggs atop a bed of lentil stew, and it sounded so good! So gourmet! So French! So I made it, and I covered it with copious amounts of turmeric and black pepper, and I punctured my first undercooked yolk, and it oozed, bright yellow, all over my stewed lentils, just as I had feared it would. But I tried it. And I liked it. I liked it so much that I made it again for dinner two nights later. And again two nights after that. I was smitten.
That was the day I learned to love fried eggs.
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Umbrian Lentil Stew with Olive-Oil-Fried Eggs and Asparagus // serves 2
This dish is reminiscent of Deborah Madison’s stewed lentils that I know and love, but adding turmeric to this batch provided a little Moroccan flair and distinctly earthier flavor. I have also fallen in lust with fried eggs! This warm and hearty meal is my new favorite comfort food of the season.
[Adapted from Food & Wine]
Ingredients:
enough asparagus for two people, ends trimmed
1 small carrot, coarsely chopped
1/2 small yellow onion, diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
1 1/4 cups Umbrian or green lentils (I used a mix of the two)
1 quart vegetable broth
salt and pepper
2 large eggs
a few leaves of kale
Parmesan or Romano cheese and aged balsamic vinegar, for serving
Directions:
-In a food processor, finely chop the carrot. Add the carrots, onion and garlic to a saucepan with 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium or medium-low heat. Cook, stirring, until veggies are softened, about 7 minutes.
-Add the tomato paste and turmeric and stir over moderately high heat until shiny, 1 minute. Add the lentils and 2 1/2 cups of the broth and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, until most of the broth has been absorbed, 25 minutes. Add 1 more cup of broth and continue simmering until absorbed, 10 minutes. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of broth and simmer until the lentils are tender and suspended in a bit of a sauce, 10 minutes longer. Season with freshly ground black pepper.
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss asparagus in olive oil, salt and pepper and roast on a rimmed baking sheet until tender, about 7-10 minutes.
-In a large nonstick skillet, heat a thin film of extra-virgin olive oil. Crack the eggs into the skillet, season with salt and more ground turmeric if desired, and cook over moderately high heat until the edges are golden and the whites are just set.
-Place leaves of kale in the bottoms of two shallow bowls. Top with lentils, asparagus, then a fried egg. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with shaved Parmesan cheese, if desired. Serve immediately.