A salad of mushrooms and deep fried egg

This warm salad is a bit of a wacky combination: half French, half Vietnamese and with some other unexpected flavours thrown in. If you’ve never had a deep-fried egg, you’re in for such a surprise! Chanterelles impart so much flavour, but if you want to make this salad when wild mushrooms are out of season, try a mixture of chestnut  mushrooms, sliced portobello, shiitake, enoki and even button.

237 calories per portion
2 of your five-a-day
Serves 4
600g mixed mushrooms, wiped clean with kitchen paper and cut into halves or quarters
1 tbsp olive oil
10g butter salt and white pepper
4 spring onions, finely chopped
1 tbsp truffle oil
1 tsp Balsamic Glaze
a head round lettuce, broken into big leaves, washed and spun dry
a small handful parsley, finely chopped

For the deep-fried egg
500ml vegetable oil
4 medium, very fresh free-range eggs

Heat a large frying pan with the olive oil until hot. Add the mushrooms to the pan. Cook until they are golden-brown, then add the butter and cook for another 2 minutes, until the butter has been totally absorbed.

Once the mushrooms are cooked, turn off the heat, season generously with salt and white pepper and scatter the chopped spring onions over. Drizzle with the truffle oil, then the Balsamic Glaze. Toss to combine.

Heat the vegetable oil in a small saucepan – when it is hot it will start to shimmer in the pan. Carefully drop in a little bit of bread to gauge the temperature. You want the bread to react to the oil within a few seconds – then you know the temperature is right.

Next, crack an egg (this is a one-by-one job) into a small bowl and lower it over the hot oil. Carefully drop the egg into the middle of the oil then stand back. Count to 45 in your head, then remove the egg from the oil with a slotted spoon and place it on a plate covered in kitchen paper. Repeat the process until all the eggs are done.

Finally, layer up big leaves of lettuce with mushrooms and spring onions, top with the deep-fried egg and sprinkle with parsley. Serve warm with crusty bread.

Replace truffle oil with strips of cured ham, such as Serrano or Parma, as well as some freshly nipped chives. This salad is also lovely with a poached egg.