A Chefs Breakfast : Eggs en Cocotte

Eggs en Cocotte, a Chef's Favorite Breakfast

Cooking breakfast for restaurants was one thing I thought I'd hate but I actually grew to love it. 
Besides - when your chef says you gotta start work at 4am from now on, you either do exactly that, or you find a new chef.

Working the breakfast shift meant an earlier start time than most.  So by the time the lunch crew is waking up and just getting onto the line, you're already firing on all cylinders.  That means you end up cooking breakfast for your buds because it's the best alternative to some half-awale colleague leaving their mess on your line.

The easiest, best, and what I found was the average chefs favorite breakfast was eggs 'en cocotte'.  What is that?  Basically eggs cooked in a ramekin if you don't want to romance it at all, but they can be so much more.  Read on!

The Basic Recipe:

1. Get your ceramic or glass ramekins, and a tray to set them on. 

2. Give them a slight bit of grease, like some good ol' flavourful butter. 

3. Give it a liner, like you line muffins in a tin. I usually used sliced ham, or turkey

4. Decide what other ingredients to put in there. Ideas; 

• chopped scallion
• red onion
• chopped tomato
• bacon bits
• shredded cheese
• bell peppers
• chopped herbs
• spinach
• asparagus tips
• anything else you love to have in an omelette, or scrambled eggs

5. Crack and egg overtop of it and fire those bad boys in the oven. 

6. Pull them out when done. 

It's really that easy. 

Extra Tips: 

• Don't try to get too big with them, if you do more than single egg sized cups, it will take way too long to get the whites cooked. 
• Don't keep your oven too hot, because you'll scorch the outside before the inside is cooked. 400 F is pretty good for this. 
• They're perfect if you have friends of family over for breakfast and the kitchen at home is still a mess from entertaining the night before. Fire them in the oven, socialize, and they're done! 
• If time is really of the essence, sauté some of your chopped vegetables before they go into the ramekin, before you crack the egg on top. Getting a jump start on the heating process means shorter cook time. 
• Be wary of aluminum or metal tins, they are a little sticky sometimes.
• Shred some cheese on top of the egg and give it a quick broil after they're cooked for some of that golden cheese deliciousness.

 

The image used to illustrate this recipe is called "Oeufs en Cocotte" by Lucia Sanchez from Flickr provided under a Creative Commons by Attribution License, Generic v2.0. The original has been modified with colour and brightness adjustments and a relevant title overlaid on the image for the purposes of this article.