Poached eggs, polenta, bacon and mushroom salad, red wine sauce

Oeufs en Meurette, considered a difficult thing I think because there are so many pots involved but it's actually easy because the separate elements are done in advance and assembled to plate thus the dish is favored in restaurants.

Except for the eggs.

It is possible. Easy too. You can poach eggs in advance and hold in chilled water. Then doused again in hot water to re-impart heat which only takes a second or two with a slotted spoon. But you have to overcome the unease of holding a bowl of some twenty-four or so tender chilled poached eggs. One wrong move and blam yolk all over the place.

Meurette amounts to red wine sauce reduced to syrup its acid mitigated with puréed carrots. And right off one thinks of a good use for a jar of baby food although you won't see that on any recipes. Carrots cannot be cooked in the wine as the acid will toughen the carrot cells and prevent them from blending. Reduced wine, puréed carrot, shallot, butter, it's a very nice sauce used for fish and for eggs. 

The other nice thing about it is onion confit. In my mind they substitute for a pile of noodles. Here they are hidden under polenta which isn't customary, and under sauce, but the onions are there.

Sautéed mushrooms as well

And lardons, bacon here. 

So you need separate pots and pans for

* slowly sautéing onions

* reducing a bottle of red wine
* softening carrots, this is separate due to acid

* frying lardons, bacon or ham

* sautéing mushrooms

* polenta (here, but not usual) 

* toasting croûtes, little toast rounds as platforms for poached egg, if they're used, but not here
* poaching eggs

So that's a lot of pots.

Once you've made all that mess there you are, you can clean it all up, and then you can assemble things at will. So the stabilized sauce and onions and lardons and toasted croûtes and poached eggs on hold are all good for buffets brunches and such. But if you do, use better bowls than this. Those half-plate half-bowl things are nice.

Apologies for the photo, they are all bad, the lens has no vibration control.