Eggs en Cocotte or Baked Eggs

This month the Daring Cooks challenge was edible containers.  When I first found out about the challenge I was sure I was going to make a Polish soup served inside a hollowed out bread roll.  It would have been a recreation of a dish I used to love at a certain cafe in Warsaw.   Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the cafe now, and possibly didn’t even know it back then as we always just used to call it the soup in a roll place.   I may not have finally made that dish, but it’s on my mind now and I feel a soup from my Poland days is well overdue, especially as it is so easy to buy Polish products these days so I wouldn’t have difficulty with the ingredients.  Anyway, in the end I decided to make eggs en cocotte but with a toast container, rather than serving with toast fingers.  Eggs en cocotte can be a bit runny but I have a strong aversion to any part of the egg white not being fully cooked and so the toast container worked well because although you could eat it all with a knife and fork, it was just as easy to pick the whole thing up with your fingers.

I made two different fillings, cheddar and mushrooms, and parmesan and rocket.   For me, the cheddar and mushroom one had more taste and is the one I’d prefer if making them again, but you could just put more cheese to get more flavour.

Blog-checking lines: Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers! Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 17th to May 16th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

Ingredients – makes 2

2 slices of bread

2 eggs

8 tsp cream

Salt

Black Pepper

Option 1

2 tsp grated parmesan

A few leaves of rocket (argula)

Option 2

2 tsp grated cheddar

1 mushroom

How to Make Eggs en Cocotte

1. Flatten the bread with a rolling pin.

2. Grease the insides of 2 ramekins

3. Make 4 cuts through the bread starting from the middle of each side, stopping half-way to the centre. Like this:

4. Put the slices of bread into the ramekins so the sides that have been cut overlap each other.  Like this:

5. Put the cheese in the bottom of each ramekin. Put some rocket on top of the parmesan one and some sliced mushroom on top of the cheddar one.   Add 2 tsp of cream to each ramekin then add the egg.  Top with another 2 tsp of cream, some salt and pepper.

6. Bake in the oven at about 180c for about 25 minutes.   If you like a soft egg it will be ready sooner, but I prefer harder egg.