Assassin's Eggs

For years I’ve been haunted by a recipe - well, it’s hardly elaborate enough to call it a recipe - a plate of food, then - that I’ve never tasted and only read about in one obscure cook book. That book was La Cuisine de France: The Modern French Cookbook, written by Mapie de Toulouse-Lautrec, and published the same year I was, 1964.

Her recipe basically says, ‘Melt lots of butter…’ (all the best French recipes start like that) ‘…fry eggs, sprinkle with red wine vinegar, serve on toast.’

Doesn’t sound too complicated, does it? But as with all really simple dishes, the slightest imperfection in any part of the performance can render the whole thing worthless. And so I had found it over years of Sunday morning attempts to perfect it. The prospect was always tantalising, the end result always disappointing.

Part of the problem was I’d never seen the real thing, never tasted it, so how could I know what to aim for? On occasional wine-buying trips to France I would study the menu in every cafe, bistro and brasserie I entered - or paused outside, my nose pressed to the window trying to read the menu du jour blackboard propped on the bar. I didn’t study the menus in Michelin-starred palaces, mostly because I never went to them, but also because it seemed unlikely they would be serving fried eggs on toast.

Nobody anywhere ever offered les oeufs a l’assassin.

There was once…ah, I remember the time…happy days of innocent youth…about six months ago…I was in Paris to attend a wine trade fair. Wandering the streets on the Sunday evening, looking for somewhere to refuel, I came across an old fashioned brasserie near the Eiffel Tower (not a good location for basic food at fair prices - too many tourists.) I don’t recall the name now, but I do remember glimpses of red and white checked tablecloths, heavy art deco mirrors on the walls…and doors firmly locked. (Well, it was Sunday: who needs t eat on a Sunday?)

Most of all I remember the long list of super-traditional dishes on the menu. All the tourist-pleasing classics were there: cassoulet, confit de canard and entrecote frites for main courses. Iles flottante, tarte tatin and creme brulee for pudding. And to begin, monsieur, escargot bourguignon, terrine de chef and……les oeufs a l’assassin!

At last! But as I said, it was Sunday, and the place was closed. They took Mondays off too. And I was flying home on Tuesday. Would I have paid nine euros for a fried egg anyway? After all these years looking - of course I would! (The 30 euros for the cassoulet would have been a bit more of a challenge, I must admit.)

Anyway, it was not to be. And now the prospects of returning to France for anything as frivolous as a wine-buying trip - let alone eggs on toast - seem pretty remote. I had just about given up.

Until today. When I thought of this stuff:

We started selling these two Catalonian sauces a month or so ago to complement our range of tinned sardines, anchovies, mackerel and tuna. They look a bit like Tabasco, but even the spicy version is nowhere near as spicy as that, and the standard version just tickles your tastebuds. What they do have is a lovely zappy sharpness, due to the fact that they’re vinegar-based. This makes them the ideal thing to splash all over oily fish like sardines. They’re great on chips too.

And on fried eggs.

Not only does the acidity of the Espinaler contrast beautifully with the creaminess of the yolk - especially if you use a Sunnybrae ducks’s egg, like I did - but it provides the perfect splashes of blood-red decoration, as if the Cordon Bleu killer had passed this way only moments before.

The crunchy sourdough, the sweet butter, the salty, creamy egg, the spicy, zingy sauce - perfection on a plate!

Enfin, les veritables oeufs de la assassin.

. . .

For a glimpse of Mapie de Toulouse-Lautrec in action, check out this video from the late ‘60s, made by the amazing French TV director Jean-Christopher Averty. Averty specialised in experimental pseudo-psychedelic music videos, and here he lets just a little of his madness loose on the very gamey Mme de Toulouse-Lautrec.