We closed our Christmas season yesterday, but one aspect of it lingers: pickling marinades.
Pickled vegetables comprise the majority of our stocking stuffers each year. We love pickled peppers, and Michelle and Aly enjoy stuffed olives. We eat these throughout the holiday season, so by the end of the celebration, we have a lot of jars sitting around without contents, other than the leftover marinades.
We, like many frugal people, sometimes put new foods into these marinades. Boiled eggs if they can fit, or small onions—or in our case, any small produce, like little carrots from bed culling. Leave them in there for a while, and they “pickle” in the juice.
More and more often, Michelle has taken to poaching eggs in the marinades for breakfast.
A pickling marinade-poached egg on a bed of sauteed vegetables (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).
Heat enough marinade to float the number of eggs to be poached at medium high heat. Bring to a boil and simmer before adding eggs. Crack eggs into a dish and slip carefully into the liquid. If you make a whirlpool by stirring with a spoon, and pour the egg into the vortex, it keeps it from spreading out on the liquid. Remove when you judge it to be done, depending on how you like your eggs.
Leftover pickling marinade heated for egg poaching (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).
Slipping the raw egg into the marinade (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).
Because most of these pickles are Italian, Michelle seasoned them with Italian herbs. She also sprinkled marinade on the sautéed vegetables. The results are delicious!
This isn’t going to change much in the big picture, but it’s nice to eek out an extra use for pickle “juice” that would otherwise get thrown out. And, it tastes great!
That sounds delicious. I’ve got an almost-empty jar of olives, so I see a poached egg or two in my future. BTW, my normal use for leftover Kalamata olive liquid is to marinade fresh mozzarella balls.
Nothing like a little incentive to empty those jars, huh? We’ve always talked about making mozzarella, but never have. I need to mention this to Michelle. I’m not fond of Kalamatas, but I’ll usually eat them if they’re in something.