What do you folks do for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning? I’ve been thinking about this one for quite some time. Breakfast is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the focus of a Thanksgiving day menu–I think we can all agree on that. However, it’s essential for proper stomach expansion and intake later in the day, to eat breakfast. That, by the way, is not a scientifically based fact but simply a fact-sounding statement inspired by my stomach and its vast experience.
For me, the strategy of “saving room up for later” always backfires and you’re simply too starving to eat a lot by the time the turkey and bevy of sides are out of the oven and on the table. There is also the reality and challenge that from sunrise on Thanksgiving Day, most every orifice in the kitchen is occupied with a dish in progress.
This simple version of baked eggs (ouefs en cocotte in French, if you’re feeling fancy, which I’m not) takes less than 20 minutes of oven time and makes perfectly cooked eggs for everyone, all at the same time. If you’ve read my blog before, you know that my biggest abhorrence about eggs for guests is a recipe that causes you to basically be the omelet chef at the all-you-can-eat resort buffet with that enormous paper chef’s hat–cooking each egg pile to order, one at a time, for guests as they wait. Oh, and by the time each guest sits down, the person who just received their eggs previously is just about done eating–like playing a game of falling, eggy dominos.
This single-serve beauteous cast iron square pan was a gift but I highly recommend investing in a few for this dish and many other individual serving applications (*mind flashes with lasagna imagery*) This little guy is very similar to the one I used for this recipe.
Alternatively, in the notes of the recipe card, I have written an adjustment for folks who would rather use a large muffin tin that they have on hand or want to buy. It is a great alternative cooking vessel for baked eggs at a fraction of the cost of the cast iron pans.
This recipe is written for an individual portion and I find this to be the easiest way for you to make as many as you want for your guest pack, rather than trying to divide and multiply an arbitrary yield that I have decided on.
- 3 pasture-raised eggs
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon italian parsley, chopped, for garnish
- Kosher salt and ground black pepper, for finishing, to taste
- Single-serve cast iron pan, approximately 7" x 4"
- 3 white button mushrooms, wiped clean with a damp towel and sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices
- 1 clove fresh garlic, crushed or very finely minced
- 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
- While the oven is pre-heating, place cast iron pan so that it heats up simultaneously.
- Once oven and pan are pre-heated (This should take approximately 5-8 minutes, depending on your oven), leaving the pan in the oven and pulling the oven rack out, put cream, butter, and kosher salt into the pan. Allow cream and butter to heat for 1-2 minutes or until melted.
- Use a fork to quickly combine hot cream and melted butter in pan before pouring three cracked eggs into the pan. I recommend cracking the three eggs into a cup and then pouring the eggs into the pan from your cup or glass.
- Bake for 10 minutes or until eggs are just set.
- While the eggs are cooking, heat olive oil and butter in a non-stick skillet for 1 minute over medium heat.
- Add the sliced mushrooms to the skillet and sauté for 5 minutes, on both sides, until golden brown.
- Adjust the heat to low and add the kosher salt and the crushed/finely minced garlic to the mushrooms and sauté for 2-3 minutes, letting the garlic soften and absorb into the mushrooms, being careful not to let the garlic burn.
- Top baked eggs with garlicky mushrooms and chopped, fresh parsley.
- Sprinkle, to taste, with kosher salt and black pepper
- In order to make this recipe using a large muffin tin, simply adjust recipe to even distribute cream, butter, and kosher salt into three different wells. Then, place only one egg per muffin tin well. Adjust cooking time up to 5 minutes more, checking doneness every minute, since eggs will be in a smaller, higher space.
