April Bloomfield's Toasts with Ramp Butter and Fried Quail Eggs Recipe (2024)

Fried Eggs
Ramp

Caroline Russock

Caroline Russock is a writer who splits her time between Philadelphia and the Caribbean covering food, travel, leisure, lifestyle, and culture. Her writing is featured in PhillyVoice, Eater, Eater Philly, Serious Eats, and The Tasting Table.

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April Bloomfield's Toasts with Ramp Butter and Fried Quail Eggs Recipe

Active30 mins

Total30 mins

Serves4 servings

Ingredients

A scant 1/4 pound ramps, roots trimmed
11 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
Maldon or another flaky sea salt
3 whole salt-packed anchovies, rinsed, soaked, and filleted, then finely chopped
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (from about 2 large lemons)
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, or more to taste
A few glugs of extra virgin olive oil
Dried pequin chilis or red pepper flakes
Freshly ground black pepper
Eight 1/2-inch-thick diagonal slices from a baguette, toasted and cooled
8 quail eggs

Directions

Pile the ramps on your cutting board so the bulb ends line up. Start by thinly slicing the bulbs, working your way toward the green leaves. After you’ve sliced the purple stems and reached the greens, make your slices even thinner. Gather the sliced bulbs and stems into a little pile. Set the greens aside for the moment.
Put 1 tablespoon of the butter in a sauté pan and set it over medium-high heat. Once it melts and froths, add the sliced ramp bulbs and stems (along with a five-fingered pinch of greens) and a sprinkle of salt. Cook, stirring often, until the ramps have a hint of brown, 2 minutes or so.
Scrape the ramps into a bowl and add the remaining 10 tablespoons butter, the anchovies, lemon zest, lemon juice, a glug of olive oil, a few crumbled chilies, and, if you fancy, a few twists of black pepper. Mash, toss, and stir the mixture with a fork or wooden spoon just until everything’s nicely mixed. Give the reserved ramp greens a brief chop, then stir them in. Have a taste. You should taste the gentle onion flavor of the ramps, a good bit of umami-saltiness from the anchovies, and brightness, not tartness, from the lemon. To me, this butter tastes like spring. You might want to add another 1/4 teaspoon salt or another brief squeeze of lemon. (You can refrigerate the butter for a day or two in a bowl, or roll it into a log, if you’re feeling fancy.)
Slather the toasts with the ramp butter (you’ll have extra butter; reserve it for another day).
Pour a glug or two of oil into a nonstick pan just large enough to hold the eggs comfortably (you can also fry them in 2 batches) and set it over medium-high heat. When the oil is barely smoking, crack the eggs into the pan. (it helps to insert the tip of a knife into the shell, though not so far in that you break the yolk.) You should hear spitting and sizzling when you add them. Cook them until the whites are set and golden brown at the edges but the yolks are still runny, about a minute. Top each toast with a quail egg and add a little sprinkle of salt. Serve straightaway.