Top Chef Canada host and 'Eating Out Loud' author Eden Grinshpan dices, poaches, and swooshes her way through this Turkish-inspired poached eggs recipe with harissa and tabbouleh.
Top Chef Canada host and Eating Out Loud author Eden Grinshpan dices, poaches, and swooshes her way through this Turkish-inspired poached eggs recipe with harissa and tabbouleh.
On Play Me a Recipe, your favorite cooks will walk you through their most treasured recipes, offering all the insider tips, stories, and tricks you won't get from a written recipe—and you'll be right alongside them, every step of the way. Feel free to pause, jump back, or navigate the steps via the podcast chapters (if you're in Apple Podcasts, swipe up on the episode player page—the podcast chapters will be at the bottom).
If you're cooking along, here's the recipe we're making today. Go ahead and grab the ingredients below (Eden starts listing them at 4:25) before starting the episode.
Poached Eggs with Freekeh Tabouleh, Harissa & Yogurt
Serves 2
Poached Eggs with Freekeh Tabbouleh
Freekeh-Celery Tabbouleh
Poached Eggs with Freekeh Tabbouleh
Freekeh-Celery Tabbouleh
Is there a recipe you'd like to hear us make? Email it to us at podcasts@food52.com.
Lobby Time Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Eden Grinshpan: I'm going to slice my celery, which is my, one of my personal favorite things to actually slice. It's like, so incredibly satisfying, and I use it a lot in my cooking now, and I just love the freshness and the bright and the crunch that you get from it.
Eden: Hi, this is Play Me A Recipe. I'm Eden Grinshpan, television host and cookbook author of Eating Out Loud, and today we are making a recipe from my book. It's poached eggs with freekeh tabouleh, yogurt, and harissa. And this is my riff on a traditional Turkish dish in which you take poached eggs and you serve it with yogurt and finish it with a chili infused oil and butter. But obviously I had to put my own twist on it. And instead of serving it with bread, we serve it with this insanely addictive and delicious celery freekeh tabouleh. You're going to love it.
So I have a love affair with eggs. Um, I love eggs so much that I actually have an entire chapter dedicated to eggs in my book. And this recipe was just a no-brainer to me, and it happened so organically. I had this dish once, this Turkish dish, um, where the eggs were just coated in this yogurt and served with this chili infused butter that like, I became so addicted to those flavors. And I absolutely loved the contrast of the creamy, tangy yogurt against the rich yolk of the poached egg, and that hot sauce, that butter, that hot butter sauce was just such a beautiful accompaniment. It was out of this world. So I definitely wanted to put my own spin on it, and when I started playing around in my kitchen, um, I felt, uh, you know, especially since bowls are such a big deal and people love them, and they're always easy to put together, and for me, I just love the ease of it all. I wanted to just throw everything into a bowl with a beautiful, really bright, crispy, fresh new take on a tabouleh salad.
So I take my poached eggs, I put it in either labneh or a garlic yogurt, or you can simply just season Greek yogurt with some sea salt to just amplify that flavor. Um, and then I just finish it with uh, harissa, harissa oil. So harissa is a north African spice paste. Um, I actually have a recipe for it in my book. I use um, some dry guajillo chili peppers that I rehydrate, and I blend it with toasted coriander, cumin, garlic. I throw some hot cayenne chili, fresh chili peppers in there just to bring that extra heat. And what happens a lot of the time is when I store it in the fridge, the oil um, kind of separates a little bit at the top. So I like to use that oil, that harissa oil to finish off this dish. Um, if you don't have that, you can totally just mix harissa with a little bit of olive oil to just get the same consistency. Or you can simply just put the harissa or any kind of chili flake into the butter to heat up, if you want to go more of a traditional route. Um, and as I said before, you know, this isn't being served with bread, this is being served with tabouleh. And tabouleh is such a classic gorgeous salad traditionally made with bulgur. But here I'm using cracked freekeh, which is this really gorgeous nutty, um, flavor and texture. It's bigger in size, the freekeh, than the bulgur. So I like that texture, and I add my little secret ingredient here, which is celery. And that celery just adds such a beautiful brightness and insane crunch, and keeps this salad, um, really light, and it's just fantastic, especially with that lemon juice and all the herbs. It adds a really nice lightness to the dish, and I think goes perfectly well and just brilliantly, with the yogurt, and the harissa, and the poached eggs.
Eden: Okay, so here are the ingredients are going to need: cooked cracked freekeh. If you guys don't have freekeh you can totally use bulgur here. Just follow the uh, recipe, or the guidelines on the back of the bag. Freshly chopped parsley, freshly chopped dill, celery stalks, finally diced, extra virgin olive oil, grated zest and juice, and kosher salt. That's all for the freekeh celery tabouleh. And now for the rest of the recipe, you need distilled white vinegar, eggs, lemony yogurt. You can also sub with labneh or just plain Greek yogurt with a pinch of sea salt, Aleppo pepper or red chili flakes to garnish, and flaky sea salt.
Eden: I always like to start with the freekeh celery tabouleh for this recipe, and the reason is, is you know, this is something that can actually sit a bit before you plate it, and you want obviously the poached eggs to be really hot and made right before you serve. So let's get this freekeh celery tabouleh out of the way. I have already cooked the freekeh. And all you need to do honestly, is follow the instructions on the back of the bag. Super simple. Um, just boil it until it has like--you want it a little al dente, you want there to be a bite, you'll get a beautiful nutty flavor. So I have that already cooled. I don't want to mix any of the herbs into the grain when it's really hot, so make sure you cool it down and transfer it into a bowl. So it's already in the bowl. Now what I'm going to do is, I'm going to slice my celery, which is my, one of my personal favorite things to actually slice. It's like so incredibly satisfying. Um, and we want pretty small pieces here. We have two celery stalks. Okay, so you want to just run your knife through it so that it's pretty small. (chopping sounds) And if you're, if you don't get a fine dice on it or you don't think it's small enough, you can honestly just run your knife right through it again. It doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be something that's small and not too big. That goes with, you know, close-ish to the size of the freekeh. Freekeh is pretty small, but you don't want huge chunks of celery.
So the first time I had, uh, this flavor combination was actually in Israel. I think it was Tel Aviv or maybe it was Jerusalem. And the hotel had the most insane breakfast spread, and they had this tabouleh there, and in the tabouleh there were there was celery. And celery isn't a traditional, uh, ingredient that you get in a tabouleh and I just absolutely loved it, and I was like, there's no going back now. I need to have celery in my tabouleh. It's so amazing how just, you know, going out and eating or traveling and exploring different places can really influence and inspire a lot of what you make at home. So I'm just running my knife through this celery. Don't you love the crunch? Uh, god, just the sound of that, so satisfying. And it smells so amazing. You know, celery, it's one of those ingredients I grew up eating, didn't really think that much about, you know, okay, it's in my chicken soup, I would smear peanut butter in it with raisins as a snack. It wasn't really something that I would, you know, grab or think that much of. But I did kind of fall in love with it again as an adult, and I use it a lot in my cooking now, and I just love the freshness and the bright and the crunch that you get from it.
I've just added my celery into my freekeh. Now I'm going to start chopping the herbs. There are a lot of herbs in this dish. I absolutely love herbs, I love the flavor you get from them. I, I sometimes just make salads with herbs, no lettuce leaves. Just fresh parsley, you can put fresh dill, fresh mint, I'm just like, completely addicted. So, um, I just like to, you know, I scrape the parsley with my knife along the sides to kind of get as many leaves off as possible. You don't want to have such, like, thick stalks on the inside. So I just like to double check that in my bundle, there aren't, you know, uh, thick stalks hiding. But it's okay if you have like, a couple of small ones. Like, they're still edible and delicious and fine, and they pack a lot of flavor. Um, and what I like to do is, I just like to bundle it up into a tight bunch, and just run my knife right through that. So many good sounds. Lots of, lots of chopping of fresh beautiful ingredients here. Okay, so just run your knife right through it, you want to make sure that you get a nice fine chop here. I don't like such big chunks into the grain. Okay, I just finished the parsley, and then I'm just gonna add that directly to the bowl with the freekeh and the celery.
And now I'm just gonna do the exact same with the dill. I have like, an insane love affair with dill. I use a lot of dill in a lot of my recipes. Um, it's just--it's one of those herbs that just really packs a punch. It's almost buttery, grassy, um, and just full of so much flavor. Like, you know, this isn't an herb for, you know, just like, visual's sake. This herb really packs a punch. I love it so much, and it just so happens to also be, like, gorgeous. Uh, so again, just, I'm gonna roll it up into a pretty tight ball and run my knife right through it. (chopping sounds) And obviously make sure that you wash all of your herbs before you start cooking. Um, I like to rinse these, literally dunk them in cold water and then shake them a bit, let all the dirt fall to the bottom of the bowl, and then I remove them from the bowl and then I like to kind of dry them on a rack for a bit. Because I find that herbs can go pretty quickly, especially if you don't know how to treat them properly. Um, one way that I love is I just trim the base and I put it into a quart container with water and then cover the top with a ziploc, A really big ziploc. Or you can also just keep them, wrap them in paper towel and wet the paper towel a little bit. Just roll it up nice and tight and keep that in the fridge like that, and it should last at least a week, which for me, obviously like, the longer you can have them, the better. There's nothing more depressing than throwing out a head of herbs that just like, died on you.
So take the dill and put it right into the bowl. I'm like, out of breath from chopping this dill. Woo! Such a workout. No, I'm just so pregnant right now. And like, even just doing stuff like this winds me. It's so crazy. Okay, so once you have that in there, it looks like an insane amount of green, greenery, and that's totally what you want. It will look a little crazy, but that's fine. Now, what we're going to add, is we're going to add some olive oil. We have a quarter cup plus two tablespoons. Just put it right into the bowl with all the other ingredients, drizzle it right in. I'm just eyeballing it. Okay, and then you want the grated zest and juice of one lemon. I absolutely love the lemon zest in this recipe. It adds just another dimension of that lemony flavor, and it smells incredible. The second you start zesting your citrus, it's just like, the smells in the air are just insane. So then I slice right through, and I use my hand underneath the lemon to capture all of that fresh lemon juice and to make sure that no pits fall into the bowl. And I really like this really citrusy. The lemon brings out all the other flavors and just brightens that grain so beautifully. I just love lemon so much, that acid is key. Okay.
And what I want you to make sure that you guys do is season as you go. Obviously everyone has different taste buds and different ideas of what is seasoned with salt, um, you know, well enough. So just make sure that you taste it after you season it. So right now I'm just going to mix everything together. Oh, it's so gorgeous. And the second you start mixing it, the herbs just distribute so beautifully and it doesn't feel like it's too herb heavy. It's just gorgeous. Oh my god, I'm excited about this. Lunch is gonna be delicious today. And you know what? Tabouleh is like my, my husband's, like, all time favorite thing, he loves this. Mm, mm, so good. Perfect. See, for me, it's--I'm adding a little bit more olive oil, but that is just perfect. Absolutely delicious.
So the second it's seasoned to how you like, I'm just gonna put it to the side, and what I'm gonna do next is I'm going to put the pot on the stove and heat it up so I can poach my eggs. And we're gonna take a little break, and I'll see you guys right after.
Eden: And we're back. Hi guys, just to remind you, um, if you guys maybe forgot what we're making or forgot who's talking, my name is Eden Grinshpan, I'm television host and cookbook author of Eating Out Loud, and we're making a recipe from my book, poached eggs with freekeh tabouleh, yogurt, and harissa, and we're going to pick up the recipe from poaching my eggs.
Eden: Okay, the next thing I'm gonna do is set up my station so I can get everything just ready. So I have a medium pot on the stove, and I'm going to turn on the heat. And what I'm gonna do now, is I'm just going to let it kind of come to a gentle simmer, and I'm going to season this water with some kosher salt. So I have around a teaspoon of kosher salt. Okay, just gonna sprinkle that right in there, because you want your eggs to be nicely seasoned. And I'm also going to add two tablespoons of distilled white vinegar. Just gonna eyeball that. And while it heats up, I'm going to get out a spatula or a wooden spoon. You want something that you can basically stir your water with, because you're trying to make this, like, vortex, this gentle vortex. So it's starting to simmer. Now, what I'm going to do actually, is I'm going to crack my eggs. I'm going to do one at a time, and I like to do it actually--I do it into a bowl so that I make sure that there is no shells in the eggs. And also this way it gives me more control when I put it into the water. Okay, so I just cracked one egg. We'll put that to the side, and I have the other eggs standing nearby, cause I'm going to do it right after. And it's starting to simmer, and just turn that down a little bit. Now I'll just bring it up a little bit. There you go. And now I'm just going to start mixing the water. I have my wooden spoon in there, and I'm going in a circular motion around it. Just keep going until you have a nice like, little rhythm going. Okay, now remove your spoon and gently drop the egg right into the middle. Gorgeous. And the whites should just kind of fold in on itself. And now I'm going to get the other egg ready, right into the same bowl. Make sure it's not boiling. It's just a gentle simmer. Very important. And once this one sets up a little bit you can kind of do the same thing, where you have your spatula moving. I put my spatula back in and I start doing that circular motion again. Okay, and then I just gently drop the egg right into the water. And both of them should just slowly set up. Beautiful. The egg literally whips--the egg white literally whips around the egg yolk, and it creates this beautiful, perfectly poached egg. I love poached eggs.
Eden: Now while those poach, I'm just going to season my Greek yogurt. So I just have some plain Greek yogurt here. Uh, you can use labneh, or, or you can take Greek yogurt and put a little bit of garlic in there. Um, and some salt. I'm just gonna put some salt today. Um, season it, give it a nice, a nice little pinch to bring out more of those flavors. Also, you want it to be a little bit more on the savory side. So I just sprinkled in some salt, mix it around. And I'm gonna take two--I'm gonna, you know what? I'm going to just plate one bowl right now. So the recipe calls for a quarter cup of yogurt. So you can do around a quarter cup, you can do even less per bowl. So basically plop it right onto the side, and schmear out a little bit on the, the middle of it, creating this little well shape. And you want it to be on the oval side so that it can kind of accommodate both the eggs really nicely. And what I want you to do is, I want you to have a paper towel or just a regular kitchen towel nearby, because when we take out the poached eggs, they're going to be pretty watery and we want to drain some of that water before we put it down on the yogurt.
So I'm just checking on my eggs. They're looking really beautiful, and we want to make sure that these are a nice runny yolk. We don't want it to be too, um, cooked on the inside. I actually really don't like a hard boiled yolk. I'm pretty picky. But I also don't like it when it's too runny and kind of like, goopy. My husband always makes fun of me when when I order like, sunny side up eggs. If it's too like, goopy, and like, the white isn't set, I just can't do it. I just can't do it. So I just order over easy now. (laughing) Okay, they're coming together. It should take around three minutes to poach it perfectly. They're feeling really good. Yeah, they're feeling about right. So I'm going to turn off the heat, and now what I'm gonna do is I'm just going to gently lift them out, and put them one by one on the paper towel. And you can feel with your finger when it's done. It should give a little bit, but it should also be like, firm around it. So I have my poached eggs right to the side, and I'm just going to put them on the paper towel to drain a little bit. And while they drain, I'm just going to grab my harissa. So I have store bought harissa today. Um, but as I said earlier, I have an amazing harissa recipe in Eating Out Loud. I worked on that harissa recipe for so long, and I'm incredibly proud of it, and I usually always have it in my fridge. Um, I just--right now I'm actually doing this out of my mom's fridge, so I don't have my usual condiments on hand.
So I have the harissa here and I'm just going to mix it with a little bit of olive oil. I took, I took around a tablespoon out. I'm gonna put around a tablespoon of olive oil in with that, and that's just going to loosen it up and get this beautiful harissa oil ready to play.
Eden: Okay, so the yogurt is down, the harissa oil is ready. My eggs are dried, and what I'm going to do is, I'm actually just using my hands right now, but if you want to use, you know, a spoon, which is probably easier, I just transfer the poached eggs right on top of the yogurt. And I'm just going to take my tabouleh. I'm going to give it one last mix and also one last taste, because it's been sitting for a little bit. Sometimes you need to just check for seasoning, because, I don't know, you know, when it sits, it kind of loses its, its tanginess or its saltiness sometimes. Or maybe it might need a little bit more olive oil. So just give it one last mix. Taste it. Oh, it's perfect. So good. Grab a spoon. Here's the spoons, and just spoon it right next to the yogurt and the eggs. I have to call my husband down to try this. Ido?
(musical interlude)
Eden: Yeah, we're recording.
Ido: Oh, cool.
Eden: Say hi.
Ido: Hi. (laughing) Look at that.
Eden: Isn't it beautiful?
Ido: That's gorgeous. That's delicious, wow. Mmhmm.
Eden: You can find the recipe at the show notes on Food52.com. Thank you for joining me. I'm Eden Grinshpan on Play Me A Recipe today. Happy cooking, and I can't wait to see these recipes in your home. Enjoy, and I'll see you guys soon. Bye.