Lost Eggs

There are various recipes under the name "Lost Eggs," including in German, in which the name is "Verlorene Eier," which is literally "Lost Eggs." German 'verloren' (the v is pronounced f) is the close cousin of English 'forlorn.' I've seen "Lost Eggs" made with Parmesan cheese, Gouda, cheddar and havarti. Uncooked spinach or other greens always form a mountain in a pan or skillet, but they cook down to the point where you begin to ask yourself, "Am I going to have anything left to eat?" 

 

I generally use one poached egg per serving, but I'm fairly certain the roof won't fall in if you use more than one egg for a serving. (Ah, what's that creaking, cracking sound?) Serve with mashed potatoes.  

 

Ingredients (4 servings): 

 

4 eggs

1 pound fresh spinach

1 cup chopped onion (=1 medium onion)  

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons butter

3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

 

For the sauce:

 

3 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup flour

1 1/2 cans evaporated milk

3/4 cup shredded white cheddar

 

paprika or ground red chili powder to garnish the finished dish 

Begin by heating water in a pan over medium heat to poach the eggs.

For the sauce: Melt butter in a skillet over low heat, stir in the flour to form a roux; cook while stirring constantly for 1 to 2 minutes to remove the raw flour taste. Stir in about a third of the first can of evaporated milk and keep stirring until it is incorporated into the roux, then add another third of the evaporated milk and repeat the process (you may want to change from a spoon to a whisk at some point), then add the final third and repeat, then add the half can of evaporated milk and stir it in well. You should now have a smooth creamy sauce. Get the spinach cooking, then come back to add the shredded white cheddar and stir to incorporate the cheese into the sauce. 

For the spinach: Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat, then add the onion and saute for about 2 minutes, then add the minced garlic and saute the onion and garlic mixture for another minute, then add the spinach. It may look like a lot, but it will cook down. Add a lid or foil over the pan and when the mound of spinach shrinks in size, add the salt and pepper and stir to mix. 

For Serving: Poach the eggs, then put some of the spinach on the plate, then top the spinach with a poached egg, then spoon some of the cheese sauce over the egg/spinach

I spooned the cheese sauce around the egg yolk, so that the egg can be seen in the photo; after all, they don't call it "Lost Eggs" without reason. I put some sauce on the mashed potatoes too.

WORD HISTORY:

Hedge-This word is distantly related to "quay," a word English borrowed from French, which had it from Gaulish (a Celtic language), which had it from its Old Celtic parent, and to the first part of "hawthorn," a word from the Germanic roots of English (German has the closely related "Hagedorn"). "Hedge" goes back to Indo European "kagh," which had the idea of "to enclose, to seize (enclose with claws or fingers);" thus by extension, "fence, wickerwork (both used to enclose something)." This gave Old Germanic "hago," meaning "hedge shrub," which then produced West Germanic "hagjo" meaning "a hedge, a fence,"^ and this gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "hecg" meaning "hedge, fence, enclosure." This then became "hegge/hege," as well as some other spellings, before the modern spelling. "Apparently," the meaning originally didn't necessarily just mean the "shrubs and bushes that enclose some piece of land," although that meaning was there too, but the meaning was rather simply the idea of an enclosed area and the material used to enclose it. The more specific meaning of "shrubs/bushes" finally became the main meaning and the word was used in the Old English compound "hegeræw," the earlier form of modern "hedgerow." The other Germanic languages have: German has "Hecke," and German also has the modern developed compound "Heckenschütze," literally "hedge shooter," from the notion of "a shooter from the hedges;" thus, the German term for "a sniper," Low German has "Hegg" and "Heeg,"^^ Dutch has "heg," West Frisian has "hage." In North Germanic, Danish has "hæk," Norwegian has "hekk" and Swedish has "häck," all "supposedly" borrowed from German in the Middle Ages, while Icelandic has the noun "hekk, which "may" well have been borrowed from Danish or Norwegian. ^^^  The verb form of "hedge" came from the noun in the second half of the 1300s as "heggen," meaning "to put hedges or fencing around an area of land;" thus also a little later, "to hinder with a barrier." The more common meaning in modern times seems to have developed in the latter part of the 1500s, "to protect oneself from loss," from the notion of hedges providing some security from harm.

 

^ The idea for many sources is that Old Germanic had a word, but that it did not survive in North Germanic, but it did pass into West Germanic in a slightly altered form; thus, English has "haw," the berry of the hawthorn tree/shrub, and a type of hedge, and also "hedge." 

 

^^ There is no "standard" Low German language, rather Low German is a collection of dialects which are not necessarily always mutually intelligible; thus, spelling variations (and pronunciations) are common for many words.

^^^ The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish forms all are close to the German form, but the borrowing came at a time when the Low German form in some dialects was "heck/hecke." Just my feeling, but the North Germanic languages were in constant contact with the Germans of northern Germany, where the language back then was Low German. Unfortunately, the German dictionary of the Brothers Grimm doesn't shed any light on this. Icelandic also has "limgerði" (=limgerthi), which means "leafy barrier or fence;" thus, "hedge." The "lim" part is related to English "limb," while the "gerði" part of the word is related to English "yard."