Recipe Friday: Henry’s “Fancy Eggs”

July 18, 2013 | Written By: Healthy Schools Campaign

A simple breakfast, made special.

by Mark Bishop

The recipe here is not complicated. It’s essentially a simple tomato sauce and basic eggs. What was exciting about it, however, was how engaged my son was in preparing this breakfast as a surprise for my wife.

“Daddy, shhhh!” my suggestion of breakfast was met with a flurry of enthusiastic whispering from Henry. “Let’s surprise mom and make her eggs with tomato sauce in that shape! Shhhh. Don’t tell her!”

His excitement was about more than just the food; it was all about the presentation. Henry saw me make eggs a few weeks ago, where I had pressed the eggs into a mold to shape and presented it on a plate. He thought it was so cool.

Off to the races we were. It was exactly 6:45 in the morning. We had all the ingredients; we just had to get it done. I diced. He poured. We fried onions. We blended the tomatoes for sauce and added them to the onions. Henry noticed that it needed a thickener and suggested flour, a trick he had learned from our previous cooking adventures. The tomato sauce thickened up and we let it cool for a bit.

Once the scrambled eggs began to firm, we put them in a mold—I used a ramekin that I had lying around, but you could use a bowl, a muffin tin, whatever you have in your kitchen.

I felt like I was in a student version of Top Chef with my 7 year-old as my sous chef. But my deadline wasn’t an arbitrary 30-minute limit—I had to take a shower, get Henry ready for camp and then get myself to work on time. Real life can be so much like a game show at times.

In the end, it worked. It was delicious. Henry was proud. My wife was “surprised” as we all split our delicious, gourmet and surprisingly fast breakfast at 7:26 a.m., in plenty of time to continue the rest of my day.

“Fancy Eggs”

You’ll Need:

Quick(ish) Fresh Tomato Sauce

1. One diced onion
2. Three cloves diced garlic
3. One tablespoon olive oil
4. Five large tomatoes
5. Two tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
6. One tablespoon sugar
7. Fresh herbs (basil, oregano, sage)
8. Optional – tablespoon flour to thicken (I usually like to simmer my tomato sauce for 3+ hours to thicken and intensify the flavors, but in a pinch, a tablespoon of flour works wonders)

Cheesy Eggs

1. One diced medium onion
2. One tablespoon olive oil
3. Three eggs
4. Quarter cup milk
5. One cup cheese (we used half parmesan and half cream cheese)
6. Fresh herbs (we used tarragon and sage from our garden)
7. Salt and pepper to taste

How to Make It:

Tomato Sauce

• Fry the onions and garlic in a saucepan with the olive oil until translucent. About 5 minutes.
• While the onions are frying, put your tomatoes, vinegar and sugar in a blender. When thoroughly blended, add to the saucepan.
• Let sauce come to a light boil, turn down heat and let simmer for 20-30 minutes.
• Coarsely tear your herbs and add to the sauce.
• If you want to thicken the sauce you can mix in a tablespoon of flour. Make sure you mix thoroughly and let come to a boil again. Alternately you can add a tablespoon of tomato paste.
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Eggs

• Fry the onions in a frypan with the olive oil until translucent. About 5 minutes.
• Into the frypan, add your eggs and milk and mix. (I like to mix in the frypan as to have fewer dishes).
• When the eggs are starting to set, add your cheese and herbs. Mix with until cheese is melted and eggs are firm.
• Add herbs, salt and pepper to taste.

Plating

• This is important! Make your plate look good. We spooned the tomato sauce onto plate. Then pressed some of the eggs into a small ramekin-like bowl and placed the eggs on top of the sauce. Then we garnished with thinly sliced carrots and a cherry on top for color. Enjoy!