I love breakfast. (ok, and lunch and dinner) I’ve been trying to perfect Eggs en Cocotte for years now and I still can’t make it perfectly but it has gotten better over years at least. I fail better at it nowadays. Its takes a long time to make but the end result is so cute and yummy that it makes it worth it – most of the time… unless you mess it up and then breakfast becomes a frustrating event that makes me want to cry. Aaannyways, today was successful. You can make it with alot of different ingredients. Today I chose leeks, but in the past I have made it with bacon and onions or mushrooms or fennel – you could get imaginative.
Chop the leeks up real fine and saute them for about 15 minutes (do not burn them like I did!). Grate a little bit of nutmeg into the leeks while they’re cooking, add salt and pepper. Then put the leeks into buttered ramekins, crack a couple of eggs in each one, add salt and pepper. Then put the ramekins in a casserole dish and pour boiling water into the casserole dish to surround the ramekins, and then put it in the oven! Half way through put some parmesan cheese (or gruyere) on there. I think it takes about 20 minutes at 375 degrees but its kind of something you need to decide on by watching it, its tricky. Sometimes the center will still be runny while the rest is perfectly done. I like to take it out at that point and finish it up in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Voila! (one thing I would change is maybe to cook it in the broiler (if you have one, which I don’t) so the cheese gets nice and toasty)
