Senfei (Mustard Eggs)
Photography Sarah Tuck.
This humble, traditional dish is perfect for a mid-winter weekend lunch. It has a feel-good comfort factor while looking pretty as a picture.
Serves: 4 for lunch
INGREDIENTS
50 grams butter
¼ cup plain flour
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon American mustard
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
sea salt and white pepper
8 eggs, boiled for 6 minutes, left to cool in cold water then peeled
⅓ cup salmon caviar
To serve
1½ cups baby watercress
½ cup fresh dill, picked into small fronds
mashed potato
METHOD
Melt butter in a medium saucepan and add flour. Cook, stirring, over a medium heat for 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of stock and whisk over the heat for 5 minutes until starting to thicken. Add milk, mustards and nutmeg and continue cooking until smooth and thick. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Bring a pot of water to the boil and drop peeled eggs in for 1 minute. Drain eggs and serve with warm mustard sauce, a spoonful of caviar, the baby watercress and garnish with dill. Accompany with creamy mashed potato.
Cook's tips: To emulate the way this dish is served at La Soupe Populaire (the restaurant this recipe was inspired by), you can add some light potato crisps on the side. I also recommend accompanying it with Beetroot and Apple Chutney.
To ensure easy-peel boiled eggs, pierce the base of the egg with a needle before cooking and after cooking plunge into icy-cold water to chill.
Sarah Tuck
Sarah Tuck is a food writer and photographer based in Auckland. For more recipe ideas and cooking inspiration, visit her beautifully photographed blog, From the Kitchen. To read a little more about her and find out how From The Kitchen began, click here to read our story on her.
Keep up to date with
dish weekly recipes,
food news, and events.
Related Content
latest issue:
127
In Dream Escape, we journey from Japan and Morocco to Italy, India and beyond, sharing recipes inspired by travel, heritage and comfort. We celebrate the champions of the Outstanding Food Producer Awards, explore the stories and recipes of chefs shaped by their cultural roots, and warm up with everything from West African soups and slow-braised lamb to porchetta, butter chicken and beef noodle soup. Alongside destination menus, Scandinavian sweets and cosy pub classics, Chrisanne Terblanche shares her favourite street-side dining spots in Bangkok, while Yvonne Lorkin explores red wine varietals. This issue, we invite you to slow down, turn the pages and escape through food.