Eggs En Meurette: The French Egg Dish Served In Red Wine Sauce

Eggs are one of the most versatile foods on the planet, and it feels like there are about a hundred ways to cook one. A poached egg is one of the lighter options, or you can dig into scrambled eggs prepared with a few tablespoons of butter for a more decadent alternative.

Whichever avenue you prefer, when it comes to cooking just about anything, the French style is often one of the richest and most classic techniques you can use, with origins in both peasant meals and palace feasts. Its mission is to make a luscious dish out of even the most modest ingredients, says MasterClass. Renowned for sauces done impeccably well and a real emphasis on relishing life through each bite of food, it's a favorite around the world for good reason.

So when it comes to cooking up a few eggs for breakfast, lunch, or really any meal, it's nice to take a look at how the French do things. It should come as no surprise that they've taken the humble egg and elevated it to great culinary heights with a few classic techniques and beloved French flavors.

Oeufs en meurette, also known as red wine-poached eggs, is a rich and hearty French plate reminiscent in flavor of beef bourguignon (in fact, oeufs à la bourguignonne is another name for this dish). In keeping with the French tradition, per MasterClass, of using ingredients from its own regions, both of these classic French dishes utilize one of the things the country is best known for: wine. Hailing from the Burgundy region of France (the home of Burgundy wines, of course), according to Serious Eats, these dishes not only incorporate but truly elevate the full-bodied red wine of the region. And who doesn't want a reason to add some wine to their everyday routine, even if it's at breakfast?

Eggs en meurette consists of poached eggs served with a rich sauce of pearl onions, mushrooms, a hint of bacon, and of course, red wine. All that sits atop a lovely piece of garlic toast to soak up all the good juices, and the dish makes for a truly decadent, but not too filling breakfast or lunch. Fans of North African shakshuka or the widely popular Mexican likeness, huevos rancheros, won't be disappointed, while newcomers can discover that a rich and savory sauce is a fairly simple way to impart a lot of flavor to eggs and make a complete meal out of a protein sometimes relegated to side dish status.

The New Yorker advises that if you're interested in this wonderfully French style of poaching eggs, it helps to know the history of the dish and the slight variances in how it can be prepared. If you order the dish in a restaurant, for example, there's a good chance your eggs will have been poached separately, i.e. in water. This is done mainly for appearance's sake, because science says, according to Physiology and Behavior, that we eat with our eyes first. In the U.S., we probably aren't used to seeing eggs come out as a dark red blob, and the sight could take a bit of getting used to. Poaching the eggs in water and then nestling them in the sauce allows them to maintain their characteristic white appearance while still benefitting from the flavor and richness of the sauce.

However, traditionally, the dish was made by peasants in France, and it doesn't seem reasonable that they would go through the process of using — and then cleaning — multiple pans. In its truest form, the dish should be relatively simple in preparation (though that may be hard to believe given the incredible depth of flavor and richness that it brings to your palate). To make it the classic way, simply reduce a bottle of red wine, whatever you have on hand, with some onions, bacon, and mushrooms. Quickly poach your eggs in the sauce and spoon the whole thing over a nice, crispy piece of bread. Voilà.