Eggs In Purgatory

I’m not sure how the name Eggs in Purgatory came about, but it’s basically eggs baked in tomato sauce. It’s also my new favorite brunch dish.

The dish is very basic and starts with a good tomato sauce. My go-to tomato sauce is the Rich Tomato Sauce from Marco Canora’s Salt to Taste. The recipe calls for cooking crushed cloves of garlic in olive oil until soft, then adding good canned tomatoes. You cook the tomatoes for about 30 minutes and then puree, adding in chunks of cold butter to make it a little bit creamy along with some fresh basil. I just love how simple it is, and it always comes out great.

I make a lot of variations on Marco Canora’s sauce, so I made a slightly spicy version of it this morning with fresh oregano instead of basil. We had a version of eggs baked in tomato sauce from Posto recently that was very heavy on the oregano, and it was delicious! I also upped the olive oil and garlic a little bit and omitted the butter, thinking that the eggs would provide enough creaminess in the dish.

Once the sauce is ready, the rest comes together quite fast. We used the eggs in purgatory recipe from Serious Eats as a guide for how long and at which temperature to cook the eggs. We also cut and toasted some thick slices of bread to put the eggs on.

Eggs in Purgatory

¼ c. extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
½ tsp. red chili flakes
1 28-oz can tomatoes (we like Trader Joe’s brand)
Fresh oregano
4 eggs
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Freshly grated parmesan cheese (optional)
Thick slices of bread

Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat and add the cloves of garlic and chili flakes. Cook for about 5 minutes until lightly golden and soft, adjusting the heat if necessary. Meanwhile, preheat the overn to 375 degrees. Add the tomatoes, crushing them a little bit with a wooden spoon. Season with a little bit of salt and pepper. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

When it’s ready, the tomatoes will be broken down and the oil will kind of separate and be on top of the sauce.

Add some fresh oregano (a sprig, more or less) and puree using a hand blender. Taste, and then season with salt and pepper if necessary.

Transfer some of the sauce to an oven proof casserole dish. There will be sauce left over, but it never goes to waste at our house. Crack four eggs into the casserole.

Cook the dish in the 375 degree oven for about 12 minutes. Toast the bread in the oven in the last five minutes of cooking time. To ensure that the yolks stay runny, take it out right as the whites begin to set and all turn white. They might not look quite done, but they will continue to set after you take it out of the oven.

Dip the bread right into the dish, or spoon the eggs and sauce right over the bread. You can also top it with a little bit of freshly grated parmesan cheese and/or some flaky sea salt. It’s such a simple but incredible combination.

Huevos Rancheros

Matt and I randomly had all of the makings of huevos rancheros sitting in the fridge last Sunday and – aside from getting some jalapeno in my eye* - it was one of the best impromptu brunches to ever happen!

We bought this huge bag of masa flour to make tacos with homemade tortillas several months ago and it has seriously come in handy since. To make them, you literally just mix the masa with water, form it into small balls, and press into tortillas. I’ll have to blog about that another time, but they were a great base for the huevos rancheros.

To make the sauce, I roasted the red pepper and jalapeno and pureed them into a tomato based sauce. I topped the tortillas and sauce with some fried eggs and chopped cilantro. Here’s my (rough) recipe:

Ingredients
1 red bell pepper
1 jalapeno pepper
1 can of tomatoes
½ c. chopped onion
1 clove garlic
Pinch of ground chili (not chili powder)
Salt and pepper
4 Corn tortillas
4 Eggs
Cilantro, chopped

Instructions
Roast the bell pepper and the jalapeno over an open flame or under the broiler until they’re nice and charred on the outside. Transfer them to a large bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let them steam in the covered bowl for 10 minutes or so. When they’re nice and soft, peel the charred skin, take out the seeds, and roughly chop them.

Meanwhile, heat the oil over medium heat and add the onion. When the onion starts to soften, add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the ground chili, cook for a few seconds in the oil, and then add the tomatoes. Bring up to simmer and add the red bell and jalapeno peppers. Puree in a blender or using a hand blender. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add some of the cilantro into the sauce and reserve some for garnish.

Fry a couple of eggs for each portion, making sure the yolks are nice and runny. To assemble, put some sauce over a couple of tortillas and top with the eggs and cilantro.

* If you get some hot pepper in your eye, washing it out with milk helps. I seriously had to do that. Matt tried to not laugh.

National Deviled Eggs Day

I’ve been trying really hard to keep up with my blog, but this time I have a reason for being absent over the past few weeks. I’ve been sick! I ended up with a bad case of food poisoning, ironically. Now that I’m back to eating like a normal human being though, I can blog again.

I came across the fact earlier that today is National Deviled Eggs Day. Rather than go through my backlog of things I had wanted to blog about a few weeks ago, I figured I should definitely make some deviled eggs tonight.

I LOVE deviled eggs and am thrilled that they seem to be making a comeback with the whole southern-comfort food trend. They’re like the world’s perfect party food: easy, cheap, comforting, adorable, and – most importantly – delicious. They were always a staple in my house on Easter, but lately we’ve been making them for more and more occasions.

My family usually makes them simply with some mayo, Dijon mustard, and hot pepper relish. Sometimes we garnish with more pepper relish on top, and sometimes with some spicy paprika. My mom has been known to replace the pepper relish and paprika with some chutney and curry powder, which is also delicious.

I went with the pepper relish and paprika version tonight:


Let’s start with the hard boiled egg. Everyone seems to have their own method for making the perfect hard boiled egg. I’m not convinced that there’s one correct method, but the key is to not overcook them. No one wants hard, rubbery whites and that nasty greenish-brown ring around the yolk. I start the eggs in a single layer in a small pot of cold water. I make sure they’re covered with about an inch of water. I cover the pot, turn the heat up to high, and wait for the water to boil. As soon as the water boils, I take them off the heat and set the timer for 13 minutes. After the time is up, I transfer them to a bowl of ice water to cool.


I never measure the ingredients in the filling. I just add a spoonful of mayonnaise and a smaller spoonful of Dijon mustard and hot pepper relish. Then, I season with salt and pepper, taste, and adjust as necessary. After I fill the whites with the filling, I sprinkle some paprika on top. Voila!


There are also endless ways to class up the deviled egg. I don’t agree with additions that mask the egg too much, but there are certainly some that, I think, enhance the egg. You could add things like smoked salmon, cornichons, salmon roe, or bacon. Rather than making a bunch of different versions tonight (which I was seriously would have done if I didn’t have a late work meeting), I scoured the internet for some great sounding combinations for your reading and cooking pleasure:

• Sriracha, cilantro, and sweet pickled carrots


• Shrimp, caraway seeds, and dill


• Worcestershire and two types of mustard


• Smoked salmon, dill, and capers


• Crab and tarragon


• Wasabi and tobiko


• Kimchi and bacon


• Bacon and cornichons


• Caesar salad inspired

Here’s one final tip: I forget where I read this (Ina Garten cookbook maybe?), but someone suggested boiling one or two extra eggs when you’re trying to make, say, a dozen deviled eggs. Use the extra yolks in the filling mixture to ensure that you have plenty of filling for each egg.

Happy Deviled Eggs Day!

Brunch: Biscuits and Eggs

Matt took an overnight bus from New York last Saturday, so I made us brunch while he caught up on some sleep: scrambled eggs with chives, homemade biscuits with pepper jelly, and sliced heirloom tomatoes that my neighbor gave us from her garden. I also may have felt a little bad for being too tired and cranky to pick him up from the T at 6am :)


When I was living in New York, Matt and I got a little tired of the over-priced brunch options by my apartment. Instead, we started getting take-out biscuits from Northern Spy – which has biscuits to die for, but an otherwise mediocre brunch – and making scrambled eggs with chives. Since I’m no longer around the corner from Nothern Spy, I thought why not make my own?

It turns out biscuits are really easy to make. I’m sure it will take a lot of practice to make them as good as Northern Spy’s, but mine were passable. I used Alton Brown’s Southern Biscuit recipe, but upped the butter and shortening by a couple of tablespoons. I might even add some more the next time (Shhh).


I’m kind of a stickler about scrambled eggs. Too many restaurants overcook them or add too many unnecessary ingredients. I used six eggs, a drop of milk, and about a tablespoon of butter for this batch. I heat the butter on medium-low and added the eggs while stirring with a spatula. I think the key is to keep stirring them and to not let the heat creep up too much. Browned scrambled eggs are the worst! I turn off the heat just shy of them done and stir in some chopped chives. They finish cooking after you take them off the heat, at which point I add some more chives on top.


The only thing that was missing was some Bloody Marys. Next time!