Eggs With Migas: a little love for my dairy-sensitive friends

Migas-Topped Eggs

I was watching the remarkable and noteworthy @ChefJoseAndres this morning as he and one of his daughters prepared a traditional Spanish dish called Migas, which is the Spanish word for crumbs. No, really. I looked it up. Typically, Migas consists of crumbs (bread, tortillas, anything that's too hard to eat as bread) which are fried and then tossed with sausage or leftover meat and usually eggs (on the side or scrambled).

Chef Andres has been cooking in his kitchen throughout this new Covid-19 shutdown. He is especially good at pulling together all kinds of leftovers and putting them into a pan for dinner. His wife records the action while he and his daughters cook, sing along to popular songs (from Hamilton to Spanish pop singer Melendi to British band Bastille) and argue, laugh, dance and have a grand time. For today's video as Chef Andres and daughter Carlotta cook Migas, click here.

So, back to what I was saying at the beginning of this post before I allowed myself to ramble. The chef cooking Migas reminded me of a simple recipe that I developed last week. I guess you can call it Migas-Topped Eggs. The recipe follows.

Ingredients
Soft-boiled eggs (as many as you want)
Migas or elevated bread crumbs (as much as you need)
red wine vinegar (depends on your flavor preference)
extra-virgin olive oil (you'll know when it mingles with the vinegar on the platter)

How to Boil Eggs

• Cold eggs in cold tap water. 
• When the water begins to bubble, set your timer for four minutes.
• When the timer goes off, move your pot to the sink and drain out the hot water. Run cold tap water into the pot right away. Top it off with ice. The goal is to stop the cooking process, and you can't do that without lowering the temperature quickly and drastically.
• Peel the eggs and cut lengthwise.

How to Make Migas or Crumbs

• Take whatever stale bread you have (it has to be dry) and tear it apart. Place in a food processor and whir away until you have...well, crumbs.
• We are going one step further so that we can make our Migas dish. 
• Heat a non-stick pan over high heat. Pour in one cup of crumbs and drizzle 6 tablespoons of olive oil and half a teaspoon of salt.
• Continue stirring until the crumbs have developed a golden-brown color. You don't want to burn the crumbs, but the deeper the color, the deeper the flavor.

Why Make Migas or Crumbs
This is my dairy-alternative "cheese." A few years ago, I developed this as a cheese alternative for a friend when we were having pasta for dinner. Pasta without cheese? No way! This is not cheese, but it binds the pasta together, it gives an extra layer of flavor, it adds the salty quality of cheese and if feels as if you're using cheese. Try it on your pasta too.

Putting It All Together
Place all of the egg halves on a platter. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.
Drizzle lightly with red wine.
Drizzle lightly with extra-virgin olive oil.
Serve immediately with a green salad or as an appetizer or snack.

An Aside: If you're Greek, you've likely prepared an egg salad with just the egg halves, salt, pepper, vinegar and olive oil and called that lunch. I have. Then you dunk your bread in the dressing (oil and vinegar on the plate) and enjoyed that mouthful with a piece of tangy Feta. I have! *insert cheesy smile emoji*