eggs – Myfrenchkitchen

Pretty soon we’ll stop eating tomatoes until next year. Except of course if you were lucky enough to make tomato sauce or dried tomatoes or frozen tomatoes from your potager. I will probably resort to canned tomatoes for my soups and sauces during fall and winter, because fresh tomatoes outside of season taste like nothing. No flavour. So I’ll wait. In the meantime, this tomato clafoutis is worth making, trust me. You need nothing more for lunch or a light dinner than this dish and some crusty bread and a green salad with vinaigrette. Goodbye tomatoes, until next year!

Recipe:

400 g cherry tomatoes
Handful of shredded fresh basil
3 eggs
150 g flour
2 TBSP olive oil
200 ml milk
40 g parmesan
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 degr C.
Wash and dry the tomatoes and add to an oven proof dish.
Shred the basil leaves and add to the tomatoes.
Mix together the eggs, the flour, the olive oil, the milk and the parmesan. Season with salt and pepper.
Pour the egg mixture over the tomatoes.
Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the egg mixture has settled. (I divided the mixture between two dishes and baked for 20 minutes. If you bake in one dish, let it bake for about 30 -40 minutes.)
Remove from the oven and serve warm with crusty bread and green salad.

Serves 4 people.

A mix of cherry tomaotes for a tomato clafoutis.

Easter is coming up pretty fast and everybody is munching on Easter chocolate. So are we. But one can’t live on chocolate alone. An egg every now and then will help. An “oeuf cocotte”. It is easy to make with many variations to suit each taste an ddesire.

La recette:

Preheat the oven to 200°C. (39°F, gas 6)
Butter 4 ramekins(with volume of 125 ml or 1/2 cup) liberally with butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and place some shredded spinach on the bottom.
Spoon 1 heaped TBS of créme fraîche onto the spinach and spread it evenly over the spinach.
Break open 1 egg into a little bowl and and slide onto the créme fraîche in each ramekin without breaking the egg yolk.
Drizzle a little cream over the egg yolk to protect it during cooking.
Place in a deep ovenproof dish, fill with boiling water up to half the height of the ramekins and bake at 200°C for 9 minutes for a runny yolk. The egg white should just be coagulated and don’t worry if there is still a little transparent egg white left…while standing the eggs will still continue cooking a bit.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle with salt and pepper, some fried bacon pieces and chopped chives. Serve immediately with toasted bread fingers to dip into the eggs.

Pincée de fleur de sel:

Use any nice containers for the eggs as long as they are ovenproof. Glass looks especially nice with the layers of egg and cream showing through the sides.
Place bacon pieces or asparagus tips, frozen creamed spinach, mushrooms, strips of ham… and place at the bottom before filled with créme fraîche. the list is endless.
Use small brioche buns instead of ramekins and steady them in muffin pans, fill with eggs and bake…especially popular with children.
Infuse cream with saffron, or other spices/herbs of your choice, bring cream to a boil and simmer a few minutes to reduce and use instead of créme fraîche.

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I am not one for a lot of Easter decoration. But I love having spring flowers in my house and the chickns provide me with a moutain of eggs, which I use simply in bowls to add an Easter flavor.

..Eggs from the poulaillier, rosemary and terracotta in which the eggs end up when stolen from the poullaillier…a winning combination for me..

..For a little playfulness – an empty egg carton filled with shredded wooden strips colour green, the egg shells used for the recipe filled with water and holding spring flowers and herbs, some eggs and tiny quail eggs..