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Baked Eggs in Tomato Sauce
12 tablespoons thick tomato soup 6 poached eggs 6 tablespoons grated cheese Salt and pepper Grease small ramekins and place two tablespoons tomato sauce in each. Lay a poached egg in each dish, cover with grated cheese, season with salt and pepper, and bake in a quick oven (two or three minutes) to brown the cheese. The oven must be very hot, as the cheese should be nicely colored while the eggs are still soft and creamy.
A quick composed egg dish built on eggs poached in advance. Everything depends on the oven being hot enough to color the cheese before the yolks set hard.
- Quick ovenThe book gives no temperature, but a "quick oven" in books of this period is generally taken as somewhere around 400-450F, and the recipe is right to insist on high heat. An overhead broiler set high will also do the job, since the heat reaches the cheese directly and two or three minutes is enough.
- Poach shortPoach the eggs a touch softer than you would want to eat them, about two and a half minutes, since they continue cooking under the cheese. Eggs poached ahead can be held in cold water and drained on a towel before assembly.
- Soup or sauceThe ingredient line calls for thick tomato soup while the method says tomato sauce; either works, but it must be thick enough to sit in the dish rather than flood it. A condensed tomato soup used undiluted, or a reduced tomato sauce, gives the right body.
- RamekinsSmall individual dishes of about four to five ounces, shallow rather than deep, so the cheese sits close to the heat. Warm them before filling if the tomato base is cold, or the eggs will chill while the top browns.
- CheeseA tablespoon of grated cheese per egg. Use something that browns readily and is not greasy: aged Cheddar, Gruyere or a hard grating cheese such as Parmesan.
- YieldSix ramekins, one per person as a first course or light supper dish, two per person for a fuller plate. Serve immediately; the eggs firm up as they stand.