Saturday, December 6, 2008

Top Chef 5 -- Leah's Winning Breakfast Amuse Bouche

I am always inspired by Top Chef even if I have to modify their recipes a bit...my pantry isn't quite as well stocked!
This was a great breakfast treat this morning, and 80/20....I didn't have any quail eggs and I didn't quite make it an amuse..mine was more like a sandwich.

1 quail egg...80/20 just a regular old egg!
1/4 cup canned whole tomatoes, mashed (I used crushed can tomatoes.)
1/2 tsp chili flakes
1 shallot minced
2 pieces of bacon
2 pieces French bread, cut 1 inch thick 80/20 I used English Muffins and trimmed the edges with a round cutter
1 clove garlic
Parmesan (just enough to grate over egg)
salt and pepper to taste
1 T olive oil
1 leaf sage, fried

1. Sweat the shallots in olive oil until tender.
2. Add chili flakes, then add canned tomatoes.
3. Cook until tomato is pretty dry.
4. Grill bread on both sides and rub with garlic.
5. Render bacon.
6. Once cooked, take out of pan, leaving bacon fat in the pan.
7. Place the grilled bread in the bacon fat, cook until crunchy.
8. Use remaining fat in pan to cook quail egg, sunny side up.
9. To assemble the amuse, use a cutter to punch out the bread in a 1 inch square.
10. Put a tsp of spicy tomato on the bread.
11. Cut the bacon into the same size as the bread and put it on top of the spicy tomato.
12. Punch the fried quail egg to make it fit the size of the bread, and place it on top.
13. Grate parmesan on top of the quail egg and put a little fresh ground pepper on top.
14. Garnish with 1 piece of fried sage or chives if you prefer.

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