Mushroom Ragout with Poached Egg

This recipe was adjusted from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty.

This serves four people.

.50 oz dried porcini mushrooms
2 ½ cups water
1 ¼ lbs mixed fresh mushrooms 
1/2  lb sourdough bread
6 ½ tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 medium onion, sliced
½ cup white wine
3 thyme sprigs
Salt
4 eggs
Vinegar for poaching
½ cup sour cream
2 tbsp chopped dill
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Black pepper


Soak the dried porcini in one cup of water for 30 minutes.  Clean up mushrooms.  Cut mushrooms into large chunks.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cut bread into one inch cubes.  Toss with 2 T olive oil, garlic and salt.  Spread on baking sheet and toast in oven for 15 minutes, or until brown.

Pour 1 T of oil into saute pan and heat over medium high heat.  Add some of the mushrooms.  Cook for about 2 minutes without stirring.  Turn over to cook for another minute.  Remove from the pan and continue with more batches, adding oil as needed.  For me this took four batches.  Once all mushrooms have been cooked, add another tablespoon of oil to the pan and toss in onion and carrot.  Saute for 5 minutes.  Add wine and cook for one minute.

Take out porcini mushrooms and squeeze out liquid.  Pour all liquid into pan and add 1 1/2 c of water to pan along with thyme and salt.  Cook for 20 minutes.  Strain.  Discard onion mixture and return stock (1 cup) to pan.

Start poaching the eggs, with bringing a shallow pan of water with a splash of vinegar to a rapid boil (I used two pans).  Break an egg into a small cup and pour into boiling water.  Turn off heat and put on cover and let sit for 5 minutes.  Once all eggs are done dry.

Heat up stock, and add mushrooms, sour cream most of the fresh herbs and salt and pepper.

Put 1/4 of the croutons into each soup bowl.  Top with mushrooms and sauce.  Add an egg to each bowl.  Top with herbs.

While this makes an amazing winter meal, my kids HATE mushrooms, so we ate this as a summer meal and it was delicious.