Oeufs a la Fondue de Fromage (Poached Eggs on Canapes w/Cheese Fondue Sauce)

I've poached eggs before, I'm not great at it, they're not pretty and perfectly round or oval or whatever shape they're supposed to be. But I can say they poach and I haven't broken the yolk. So I attempted this recipe with some confidence but caution. I decided since we have TONS of green beans leftover (3 lbs of green beans are ALOT for only 2 adults and really only 1 of them that will eat them) to serve them with our brunch. it turns out they were a nice refreshing break from the salty ham and creamy slightly sweet eggs.

Again I served up some quick pan fried ham with my eggs. This just seems like a good match to sauces and creamy eggs to me. I couldn't imagine having greasy sausage with such an already heavy egg. It was mentioned that I could place the ham on the canapes and put the egg over it but I decided to stick with the traditional recipe. It'd be too much like Eggs Benedict that way.

The sauce came together rather quickly and the aroma of the shallots and vermouth cooking was great. It made waiting for the water/vinegar mixture to come to a simmer nearly impossible. I ran out of white bread so I used sourdough to make my canapes and I just did the oven method since I was concentrating on boiling my water. Maybe a little too hard 'cause I burnt the 1st batch. Oh well half a loaf of sourdough bread down and I finally had perfectly crisp canapes for my eggs.

Poaching is tricky, I don't think I'm good at it. It looks like a big mess to me when I do it. In my head the egg would slip in and the whites would fold over perfectly. Instead I get these stringy wavy things and only half of the whites stay with the yolk as I'm gently spooning them over. Still I guess it's a success since they turn white and the yolks don't break. My OCD brain makes me spoon up the floating strings of egg white before I can poach another. I quickly have 4 poached eggs and I dry them off using the slotted spoon and towel trick. I delicately place an egg on my canape (aka toast) and spoon the sauce over it. Sprinkle with Swiss cheese and I cut up 1 Tbsp of butter into quarters and place one quarter on top of the cheese. A quick run under the broiler and we're done. They look pretty good, I'd be proud to serve these to friends or family.

Turns out I think they'd be eaten pretty quickly by friends and family too. They were GREAT! The eggs were perfectly smooth, the yolk broke and spread to cover some of the ham and blended with the cheese sauce. It all melted in my mouth, sooo yummy! Although the first few bites were a bit awkward at first, I had to adjust my brain to the sauce. I'm very used to hollandaise sauce on poached eggs so my mouth was expecting something more like that. However the shallots and vermouth gave a slightly tart but sweet taste to the sauce and made the dish completely different than Eggs Benedict. I would easily make this again. And since I have so much sauce leftover I think I will serve it over the leftover green beans of maybe the asparagus for this evening.