Tom’s Kitchen: Hearty Spring Salad With Poached Eggs

This easy dish brings together spring green beans, new potatoes, and sweet and tangy tomatoes, united by a rich egg yolk.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The spring-summer cusp may be the peak of Austin’s year-round growing season. Tomatoes are already raging, and spring staples like new potatoes, green beans, and peppery salad greens are still going strong. On a recent trip to Boggy Creek Farm on Austin’s east side, I found an abundance of all four of those ingredients—plus spring onions and eggs from hens that feast outdoors on culled farm produce.

It didn’t take long to figure out a way to combine it all into one complete dish: a composed salad topped by a poached egg. The salad brings together the beans’ snap, the potatoes’ earthy note, and the tomatoes’ sweet/tangy jolt, united by a rich egg yolk. If you’re not into poached eggs, this salad also makes a great bed for a grilled steak or fish filet, or try it topped by some good tinned sardines

(Warning: This dish relies heavily on seasonal ingredients; I can’t vouch for it if you use supermarket product shipped cross-country.)

Composed Salad of Tomatoes, Green Beans, and New Potatoes, With a Poached Egg
Meal-sized salad for two; side dish for four.

Prep the potatoes and green beans
1/2 pound small new potatoes, sliced in half
1/2 pound green beans, stem end snapped off

Steam the potatoes until they are easily pricked with a fork; I use a simple steamer basket in a small pot with a tight-fitting lid. Set aside. Steam the green beans for no longer than a few minutes, making sure not to overcook them—they should retain a good snap. When they’re done, plunge the hot beans into a bowl of ice water to halt further cooking and preserve their color. Once the ice melts and the beans are cool, drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, make a dressing
1 small spring onion, white part only, peeled and coarsely chopped (you could also use green garlic or just a clove of mature garlic)
1 cherry tomato, or a slice of a regular tomato, coarsely chopped
1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste (I have a heavy hand)
1 tablespoon vinegar, such as sherry or red wine
3 and 1/2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil

Vigorously crush the first four ingredients in a mortar and pestle until they become a more or less smooth paste. Add the vinegar and oil, and stir with the pestle until it’s all combined.

Compose the salad
About two ounces of peppery salad greens, like arugula or young mustard greens (I used a combination of the two)
2 good tomatoes (I used a German queen and a lemon boy yellow)

Put the greens in a bowl, add a spoonful or so of dressing, toss, and taste. Adjust by adding a bit more dressing or salt as needed, keeping in mind that the greens should be pretty lightly dressed. Divide onto two plates, loosely spreading the greens to form a bed for the rest of the ingredients.

Now slice the tomatoes, add them to the same bowl, and again, add a spoonful of dressing, toss, taste, adjust, and divide them between the plates.

Do the same process—dress, toss, taste, divide—with the green beans, and then the potatoes

Poach the eggs and finish
2-4 farm eggs (depending on appetite)
Good sea salt and fresh-ground back pepper, to taste

Poach the eggs according to J. Kenji López-Alt’s impeccable method. Divide them among the plates. Top each plate with a light dusting of sea salt and a vigorous grind of pepper, and dig in. Serve with a simple white wine or a crisp rosé.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate