Shirred Eggs with Ham

Breakfast seems like a good way to start this culinary quest, and nothing is more quintessential to breakfast than the egg. The textbook clearly agrees with me, as it has eggs in chapter twenty-one. I don't care, it's early and no one's gonna stop me from skipping ahead, so eggs it is.

My fridge is a bit sparse (good start), meaning I need a simple egg recipe. This one is for shirred, or baked, eggs with ham; it requires only eggs (duh), ham (double duh), and some cheese.

First I preheated the toaster oven to 325 degrees, and then buttered up a ramekin to prevent sticking. Step two was to line the ramekin with a slice of ham, forming a cup.


I cracked an egg into a separate bowl before sliding it into the ham cup (breaking the egg into a separate bowl first makes it easier to pick out any shell pieces).


The ramekin goes into the oven for 10 minutes. After time's up, I removed the dish with tongs; at this point the egg is still a little bit liquidy in appearance. Grated cheese then went on top of the egg. The cheese here happens to be gruyere, so this dish is sort of like a croque madame without the bread. Also, the recipe called for the addition of one tbsp of hot heavy cream here, but I omitted this because there's enough fat in this dish already, and also because I don't have cream in the fridge.


Slid it back into the oven for another 5 minutes, and there's the shirred eggs.


The taste reminded me of an Egg McMuffin, but better because of the gruyere. And also because I can make this at any time of the day instead of hauling myself to a McDonald's before 10:30am.

Knowledge Nuggets

1. Egg whites are called the albumen, and contain a quarter of the egg's calories, and more than half the protein and riboflavin. Yolks, the yellow part, contain the rest of the calories, most of the vitamins and minerals, plus all of the fat. This is why skinny celebrities order egg white omelettes.

2. Egg grades are synonymous with the freshness of the egg, as determined by the egg's cohesiveness. When you crack an egg onto a flat surface, the less it spreads, the higher the grade (AA being the highest).

3. Try to minimize the contact of the egg with the external part of the shell. Salmonella can be found in a chicken's digestive tract, and while it doesn't get into the egg, it can reside on the outer shell.