The chef returns! Here’s Elliot’s first recipe of the new year, hope you’re hungry. Stay tuned for more Food Gold goodness on deck.

Baked eggs are near the top of my list when it comes to easy access, low stress brunch time treats. There’s no fussing with emulsifying Hollandaise sauce or messing with delicate vinegar-spiked water baths for poaching eggs. Basically you just need a really good oven proof skillet (or two small ones if you want to make it sexy and do brunch for two post hubba hubba) and something to put it on after it gets out of the oven. You can use a cutting board to rest the hot action on if you don’t have good heat-proof place mats. (I don’t.) The only way to mess this up is to overcook the eggs (watch out, they really start to come together after about ten minutes and cook quickly after that) but since you have me here, you have nothing to fret over. Also if you don’t want to make the yogurt sauce or don’t have the ingredients on hand, you can melt some butter in a skillet, add chili oil and create a real nice butter sauce to drizzle on top. You can also add breadcrumbs for texture. Ok freaks, time to go in!

Baked Eggs with Spinach and Shrooms + Yogurt Sauce

Serves two.

Ingredients:

– 1 bag fresh spinach, washed and dried

– 2 packages of mushrooms, sliced up into medium sized pieces

– 1 1/2 tablespoons butter

– Few splashes of olive oil

– 4 eggs

– Salt/Pepper to taste

– Bit of lemon pepper if you have it

Recipe:

1. Pre-heat oven and set to 300 degrees.

2. Melt butter and olive oil in a sturdy, oven proof skillet.  Once the butter starts to smell nutty, add your shrooms. These dudes have a lot of water in them so you will want to be very patient and wait about 20 minutes for the water to cook off so you can get a nice browned vibe going on. Also, don’t season them until after all the water has cooked off, otherwise the salt will just draw more water out of them and you will be adding extra minutes to the cooking time.

3. Once the shrooms are golden brown, add your spinach in small batches. Add some more olive oil if it looks like the spinach is thirsty.

4. After your shrooms and spinach are good to go and have you checked for seasoning, create 4 small holes/wells in the mixture and very carefully crack some eggs up in there. Be sure to keep the whites intact.

5. Throw eggs in the oven and bake them at 300 degrees for approximately 10-14 minutes, or until the whites are just set. They will continue to cook once you remove them from the oven, so bare that in mind. You want the yolks to be runny, so that you can crack those jammies open when the plate hits the table.

6. Garnish with some yogurt sauce (yogurt + lemon juice or red wine vinegar + salt/pepper + fresh dill), serve with some crusty bread to soak up all those lovely flavors + enjoy!

Fork The World,

Elliot