"La Boulange" Poached Egg Hash

With Joef working in San Francisco this summer, I've had a couple of opportunities to go visit him in North Beach. You heard it hear first, folks - I am in love with that city. Oh my God. The weather is balmy and cool, the streets look European, and you can walk a few blocks and see sea lions off the pier. I mean, come on.

And the food is great, too. For breakfast, we went to a place called "La Boulange". Yes, it's a chain, and they have a lovely menu, and this little condiment area with jars of jam, NUTELLA, olives, cornichons - all kinds of things that you can take bits of back to your table. Plus, they serve their cappuccino in deep, round bowls, which is just plain decadent.

I've now been there twice, and both times, we've both gotten their poached egg hash (with bacon, not sausage). It makes a great breakfast - it's just two eggs over zucchini, yellow squash, and cannellini beans, plus bacon and some herbs. And since it was easy, and easily replicated, I made it here at home. I decided to add some onion and tomato, and to replace the herbs with just a little salt and pepper. As I'm writing this, I realized I completely forgot the bacon part. It's good vegetarian - and if you wanted, a little chopped pancetta would do nicely.

I'm still not really sure how to poach an egg. The whole stirring the water while you drop the egg in thing is just not quite working out. But it worked on at least one of my two eggs.

2 eggs
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 onion, chopped
1/4 zucchini, chopped
1/4 yellow squash, chopped
1/2 tomato, chopped and lightly salted
1/3 a can or so cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
Salt and pepper to taste

In a small/medium saucepan over medium-high heat, drizzle olive oil. Add the onions and stir to coat with olive oil. When they start to turn translucent, turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer until they begin to soften and caramelize. Add the zucchini and squash, along with salt and pepper, and let that start to soften a bit, too (you can turn up the heat a little if you want).

Meanwhile, poach two eggs (that's right, I'm not going to tell you how, because I'm not so sure myself...fried eggs over easy would work fine, too). 

When you're close to being done, add the tomato and beans and cook them just enough to heat them up a bit.

Place the hash in a bowl and top with the two eggs, plus a pinch of ground black pepper.