fitfool

Last December,

corvidophile posted a recipe for Prosciutto Pesto Egg Cups. It looked incredibly simple to make and it yielded a cute little cup made of prosciutto that cradled an egg, cheese, and pesto. I love recipes that give me a good picture in the end and both my boyfriend and I love all the ingredients so this shot to the top of the list of recipes I wanted to try. WE LOVED IT. We made it 4 times in the space of 9 days, playing with variations on the fillings and also baking them in a ramekin, as suggested by Mark Bittman. Sadly, I didn't write down notes on my computer. There's probably a scrap of paper somewhere with notes that I'll find next week but in the meantime, I'll post this now since I've been meaning to do so for months now.

small image of Prosciutto Pesto Egg Cup held in hand

The instructions from

corvidophile are simple:

Preheat oven to 400°F
Spray a cupcake/muffin tin with cooking oil
Fold long strips of prosciutto into a cup
Layer in some caraway havarti (or cheese of choice)
Add a generous dollop of pesto
Gently crack an egg in the cup
Add salt and pepper.
Cook for approximately 10 minutes or until done

3 photos in a row. First photo of ingredients in muffin tin, ready to go in the oven. Second photo is fresh out of the oven. Third photo shows it cut open so you can see how done the yolk is

I think the only variation we made for the first run was to add torn spinach and used whatever cheese we had in the house. We kept thinking that the egg whites looked runny so we cooked it for closer to 20 minutes. The yolk still wasn't as done as I prefer it. My boyfriend would've liked runny yolks but he wanted his egg whites to be set so he left his in the oven too. Verdict? Delicious. And we were going to make this again. (and again and again)

Here's the bigger image of the egg cup held in hand

See? Isn't it so cute? You can even make it a finger food!

Two prosciutto pesto egg cups on a plate

But you'll probably want to serve it up on a plate and eat it with a knife and fork like a civilized grown-up.

Trying to see if we could find different temperatures and cooking times that might yield a solid egg white and runny yolk, we turned to the web for other recipes. We never did manage to get solid whites and runny yolks, but we did find two other recipes that gave us more ideas for playing with the recipe. The Culinary Chase suggested caramelizing some onions to add (I liked this addition a lot) and Mark Bittman had you bake the eggs in ramekins.

Three images of the ingredients in ramekins, getting ready to go in oven

Above, we've added a slice of prosciutto on the bottom, some caramelized onions and sauteed spinach, cheese, and then the pesto and egg. Below, my boyfriend is carefully sprinkling the cups with salt and pepper. Know why I love this photo? Because he hates cooking and yet he wanted to customize his egg cup (bleu cheese, lots and lots of pesto) and so he was in the kitchen too, fussing over his egg cups.

Sprinkling some salt and pepper over the ramekins before putting into oven

While I liked the ramekins for the ease in preparation (since you didn't need to make sure the prosciutto formed a cup), I missed the cute little presentation cups at the end. I tried to pry them out of their ramekins and while they will come out, it's not at all as cute. A bit scraggly and unappetizing that way. See what I mean?

Shows the egg cups pried out of their ramekins (not very pretty)

But they look great in their ramekins. One of these days we're going to serve these for dinner guests. This recipe is quite adaptable.

Preheat the oven to 400F
Throw whatever ingredients you like into the ramekin. We like prosciutto, caramelized onions, cheese, pesto, and egg with salt and pepper.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes to your desired level of doneness.

If you don't have prosciutto, you could throw in cooked bacon or ham. I imagine any vegetable you'd use in an omelette could work here if you pre-cook the vegetables. For cheeses, we've tried bleu cheese, shredded Irish cheddar cheese, gouda, and some other cheeses I've forgotten now. All have worked well.