Millet, roast veggies, Pietro’s egg

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This clever brunch or light, healthy lunch recipe by Peter Gordon features an unusual technique for frying eggs, and uses millet – a quick-cooking grain similar to quinoa. The egg white and yolk are separated just before cooking to keep the yolks runny and the egg white crisp and fluffy. This recipe is from Peter Gordon's book Savour: Salads for all Seasons.

First published in 2016

Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

Roasted vegetables

Millet salad

Fried eggs

Method

1
Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4
2
Place the carrots, fennel, onion, garlic and chilli in a roasting dish and mix together with a little salt and pepper. Add the butter and place the vegetables in the oven, turning them once or twice while they cook, until golden, about 25 minutes
3
While the vegetables are roasting, cook the millet. Half-fill a medium pan with water and bring to the boil. Meanwhile, dry-toast the millet in a frying pan on a medium–high heat for 3½ minutes, shaking or stirring it several times to prevent it from catching
  • 125g of millet
4
Tip the millet carefully into the boiling water and add the butter and salt. Cover the pan and cook on a low heat for 12 minutes
5
Taste a few grains – they should have a little bite. Drain the millet into a sieve, then return it to the pan, cover and keep warm
6
To cook the eggs, it helps if you have a cardboard egg box to hand. Heat 7mm (¼ inch) of vegetable oil in a large frying pan until it gives off a shimmer of heat
  • 150ml of vegetable oil
7
Crack open the eggs and tip their whites into 4 individual cups or ramekins. Place the yolks in their half-shells back in the egg box (to keep them upright). Carefully lower the whites into the hot oil and cook until they begin to crisp on the outside edges
8
Using a metal spoon, carefully spoon a little hot oil over the white to make it firm up a little. Tip the yolks carefully on to the now semi-cooked whites. Drizzle a teaspoon of hot oil over the top of the yolk to help secure it, then remove from the pan
9
To serve, toss the veggies, millet and spinach together and divide between warmed plates. Sit an egg on top, scatter with the pomegranate and drizzle with olive oil

Often described as 'the godfather of fusion cooking', New Zealander Peter Gordon has been championing international flavours in the UK since 1995, with food that holds flavour and texture, rather than tradition and provenance, as its central tenets.

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