Eggs in a nest in a tree

Poached eggs that is, in a nest of sweet onion and sweet bell pepper and rough-textured spaghetti, and a tree of Black Forest ham.  What can I say? The lad in me is still very alive and will not be shut up, so things like this happen. The leaves on the tree are basil, the nest is loosely held together with Asiago. 

The tree was almost a bacon tree, but the bacon is packaged and frozen and the sandwich ham was right there, so this is a sandwich ham tree. I'm lazy that way. 

Now here is the thing: the regulating adult in me allowed a splash of sake, which is a very strange ingredient indeed, but I tell you what, although it might be horrible on its own, especially the first sip, sake changes everything it touches in small amount. As you know, a dressing = oil + acid, so in those terms this nest is dressed with olive oil and butter, the pan that the vegetables were heated was steamed up at the end with water and sake leaving behind a trace of dressing, and it is a dressing that you would not imagine were your culinarily wandering not perverse. You are probably thinking, "Ho! wine and sake is alkaline, not acid," and that is right, and that is the reason why this thought is perverse. When regular wine oxidises it does turn acidic, and the sweeter the sake to begin with, the less alkaline it is. Chemistries! It is an odd pH thing happening that tends to linger on the tongue. At least I think that is the thing that is lingering, I could be wrong. At any rate, this sake idea is a win. On your next run to the bottle shop pick up some sake, even an inexpensive one, and it will alter your culinary experience permanently. It is convenient too, because once opened it can stay there on the countertop without deterioration until it is finally all used. Presently I am only on my second bottle, but already I have determined to never be without it. (Marsala is the second like substance not to be without, but that is best kept refrigerated.) 

At serving, the egg yolks broken open over the lightly dressed nest produces a kind of a sauce akin to carbonara. On the other hand, it also results in an unsightly mess on the plate, but then doesn't everything? 

To poach, the eggs were broken into a ramekin one at a time and gently tipped into barely simmering water that contained a generous dose of cider vinegar and salt. It is interesting and a little bit funny to watch the egg albumen start to spread throughout the water and then tighten up back into a compact mass surrounding the yolk. It is like the egg is recoiling in horror, "eeew, get me out of here, I hate this water."  Still, the albumen is a bit of a mess. The egg can be lifted out of the water, concentrating on preserving an unbroken yolk, with a slotted spoon or with a  large regular spoon, as these were lifted. Then trimmed around the edge of the spoon with an ordinary dinning knife. The eggs can be carried to a receiving bowl with warm water to halt the cooking process but still kept at temperature until serving. This is handy thing to know if you intend to prepare a large number of poached eggs in advance. Win the admiration of your peers by producing twenty plates of eggs Hollandaise all at once! Now you might be thinking that dripping wet eggs sounds unappetizing, but there is no problem with that even if you were to serve them on toast. 

I was going for a different cheese, but reaching into the cheese drawer, my fingertips touched this one first, and I thought, "Eh, what the heck."