Sprout & Pea

I’ve men­tioned this before, but eggs bene­dict and dishes of this sort are amongst my favorite brunch meals. While I love to indulge in this now and then, I also find myself wish­ing more restau­rants made tasty and health­ier veg­gie vari­a­tions on the clas­sic poached egg meal. So, I’m con­stantly rack­ing my brain for cre­ative ideas on how to put a tasty twist on it. I’ve made it with an arti­choke heart as the base with a red pep­per aioli, and I’ve made it with avo­cado, sauteed toma­toes and shal­lots and a Greek yogurt hol­landaise sauce.  My most recent prepa­ra­tion, and per­haps my new favorite, was inspired by a ton of left­over arugula in my refrigerator.

I thought about mak­ing a salad for din­ner, but then sud­denly an idea for an arugula sauce over a poached egg popped into my head. I ran with it and decided that I would need some­thing slightly sweet to pull every­thing together. Brows­ing the mar­ket for veg­gie pos­si­bil­i­ties, I set­tled on a bin of sweet pota­toes, stood for a moment, whisked around some ideas and finally tossed a sweet potato into my bas­ket and headed to the dairy isle to pick up some tangy goat cheese and some Greek yogurt. As is often the case when exper­i­ment­ing, I had no clue how this would turn out and just hoped for the best.

When I got home, I sliced up the sweet potato and tossed them into the oven with a lit­tle olive oil, salt and pep­per. While those were bak­ing, I dove in head first and ner­vously started toss­ing ingre­di­ents into my food proces­sor. These days, my small bank account can’t exactly spare money on wasted ingre­di­ents, so this needed to work. When I took a spoon­ful and tasted the sauce I was not only relived, but ecsta­tic. This some­how had turned out exactly as my taste buds had imag­ined, if not bet­ter. With opti­mism for a deli­cious meal run­ning through my veins, I poached my eggs just in time for the sweet pota­toes to fin­ish. I topped the sweet pota­toes with some goat cheese and arugula, gen­tly laid my egg on top and poured the sauce over it all. With one bite, I was in break­fast for din­ner heaven, and so was my house guest– who hap­pens to be a very picky eater. Here’s how to make it…

1 Sweet potato (the thicker the bet­ter, so you can have a large base)
1–3 eggs (you can make up to 3 of these with the amount of sauce below)
1 tbsp white vine­gar (for poach­ing eggs)
1 tbs goat cheese (per potato slice)
Small hand­ful of arugula (per potato slice)
Extra vir­gin olive oil to coat sweet potato slices
Salt and pep­per to taste

Sauce:
1 small 6oz con­tainer of Greek yogurt
3 tbs goat cheese
2 tbs lemon
1/​2 cup arugula
Pinch of salt (small pinch)
1 tbs water (as necessary)

Pre-​​heat over to 400 degrees. Slice Sweet potato into 1/​2 inch thick slices. Line bak­ing sheet with parch­ment paper, coat each sweet potato with a lit­tle bit of olive oil and sprin­kle of salt and pep­per. Bake for 30 min­utes, flip­ping slices halfway through.

While pota­toes are bak­ing, make the sauce. In a food proces­sor, com­bine the Greek yogurt, goat cheese and lemon and blend until smooth. Add arugula and small pinch of salt and blend again until arugula is com­pletely blended into sauce. If your sauce is still a lit­tle thick, add a dash of water to thin out a bit. Let sit aside.

When pota­toes are about 10 min­utes from being fin­ished, boil about 3 inches of water and a table­spoon of white vine­gar in a small pot. Once boil­ing, reduce to sim­mer, crack an egg into a small cup and pour into the sim­mer­ing water, scoop­ing any egg whites towards the yolk witha a spoon. Repeat with the rest of your eggs if mak­ing more. Let sim­mer for about 3 minutes.

Remove sweet pota­toes from the oven, spread tbs of goat cheese on top, add layer of arugula and place poached egg on top. Pour sauce over the egg and serve.