This dish makes a wonderful Sunday-night supper – or lunch or breakfast. I vary the kind of mushrooms I use according to the season and what I can find: in the autumn, weather permitting, a mixture of chestnut mushrooms and penny buns (cèpes in French, porcini in Italian) would be my absolute favourite. I have called for a proportionately greater weight of wild mushrooms here, since they tend to need more trimming and cleaning. Save any trimmings if you can, wash them thoroughly and use to make a delicious stock – or leave in a very low oven until completely dried, then whizz to a powder to add to soups, stews or gravies. Depending on which wild mushrooms I use, I might also substitute parsley for the tarragon.
For 4
light olive oil 1 tbsp
butter 50g
shallots 2, finely sliced
flat mushrooms 6, or 450g chestnut or button mushrooms, or 570g wild mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces
tarragon 3 sprigs, leaves picked and chopped
creme fraiche 4 tbsp
eggs 4
sea salt and black pepper
toast and salad to serve
Preheat the oven to 160C fan/gas mark 4 and butter four small ramekins about 8cm in diameter. Heat the oil and a generous knob of butter in a large frying pan over a low heat. Add the shallots with a pinch of salt and cook gently for about 7 minutes to soften, stirring regularly to stop them burning.
Add all the remaining butter except for a tiny nut to the pan, along with the mushrooms. Turn up the heat to medium and fry the mushrooms until they get a bit of colour. Keep cooking, moving them around so they cook evenly, until they start to soften and release their liquid – let this evaporate.
Remove from the heat, then add the tarragon, and season with salt and pepper. Divide the mushrooms between the ramekins, then spoon in half the creme fraiche. Make a dip in each ramekin and crack in an egg, being careful not to break the yolk. Season with salt and pepper, then spoon over the rest of the creme fraiche.
Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until the egg whites are properly cooked but the yolks are still runny. Serve straight away, with toast and salad on the side.
From The Sunday Night Book by Rosie Sykes (Quadrille, £12.99)
