3 Times Thursday - Dishes for National Egg Month

On Thursdays, we like to give you three recipes that center around a common theme; we call it "3 Times Thursday." Since May is National Egg Month, today we offer you three of our more unique ways to cook eggs. This month, let's celebrate what is possibly the most versatile ingredient there is! Cheers to the humble egg!

#3. Fried Egg Sandwich Nachos: This yummy dish has all the makings of a fried egg sandwich (eggs, bacon, cheese), but is in nacho form, sort of like an American-style huevos rancheros.

Ingredients:

20-24 nacho chips

3 slices uncooked bacon, chopped

3 eggs

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

3 slices American cheese

Lay out the nacho chips onto an aluminum-foil-covered baking sheet. In a large skillet, cook the bacon pieces until crispy. Drain onto a paper towel, reserving the bacon fat in the skillet, then sprinkle over the chips. Return the skillet and bacon fat to high heat. Crack the eggs into the skillet, season with salt and pepper, and cook to your liking (we did them sunny-side-up because they will cook more under the broiler). Slide the eggs onto the nachos. Cut the cheese into strips and lay the strips over the nachos. Heat the broiler to high and broil the nachos until cheese is melted and eggs are cooked. Slide the nachos onto a plate and enjoy!

#2. Baked Eggs with Thyme: Fluffy, flavorful eggs with lots of herby flavor, perfect for dipping your toast points.

Ingredients:

4 large eggs

4 tablespoons half and half

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

2 tablespoons shredded parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Place rack approximately six inches below heat and preheat broiler. Take two small bowls and crack two eggs into each bowl, taking care not to break the yolks. Place two oven-safe dishes on a baking sheet. Pour 2 tablespoons of half and half and 1/2 tablespoon of butter in each dish. Place these under the broiler for 2-3 minutes until they are bubbling hot. Remove from the oven and quickly pour the two cracked eggs into each dish. Sprinkle with the thyme, parmesan, salt and pepper, and return to the oven. Broil for 4-5 minutes, until the whites of the eggs are cooked. Allow to set for a minute then serve, either in the baking dish or by carefully taking them out (as we did), with your favorite breakfast side dishes.

#1. Shakshuka: Israeli eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce. Sexy spiciness. Eat with toasted pita!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon CT salemme pepper

5 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon hot paprika

1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes

6 eggs

1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled

Heat oil in a large skillet (we used our paella pan) over medium-high heat. Add onions and crushed pepper and cook, stirring occasionally for six minutes until soft and slightly browned. Add garlic, cumin, and paprika, and cook, stirring frequently for 2 minutes. Add diced tomatoes with liquid, reduce heat to medium and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce to medium-low, stir and make six wells in the thick sauce. Crack eggs over wells, cover the pan, and cook for about five minutes, or until yolks have set to desired consistency. Uncover, and baste the eggs with a light coating of the tomato sauce. Sprinkle the feta throughout the pan, turn off the heat, and let sit for 1-2 minutes.  Serve right out of the pan with toasted pita bread and a side of home-fried potatoes.

Meatless Monday: Shakshuka

Okay, it has been a while since we have done a Meatless Monday post. Amy has had a stressful time the last few months, and when she's stressed, it's not chocolate she wants, it's steak. She's a carnivore to the core, but the Big Bad Work Project is over, and it's time to focus on health and all that, especially as the Big Bad Holidays draw near. So, at least for now, we have a Meatless Monday post for you.

A few weeks ago, we learned that a fellow food blogger by the name of Daniel Saraga died suddenly, and a bunch of his fellow bloggers, including us, made some of his recipes in his honor. We posted about them on the same day as a tribute to Daniel, and it moved us to be a part of that. When we took a look at everyone's posts that day, we were inspired to make more of Daniel's recipes. One that really spoke to us was Shakshuka, or Israeli eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce. To us, it was fascinating. Neither of us had ever had anything like that before.

So recently we made Shakshuka for Meatless Monday. Following Daniel's recipe and suggestions, we created a spicy, chunky tomato sauce, poached heirloom eggs in that sauce, and ate the eggs using pita bread and our hands instead of forks and knives. While we made a few slight changes, we mostly followed Daniel's recipe, which can be found here. Exactly what we did is below, and the result was a unique Meatless Monday breakfast-for-dinner dish that we thoroughly enjoyed. Thanks, Daniel. Requiescat in pace.

Shakshuka

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon CT salemme pepper

5 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon hot paprika

1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes

6 eggs

1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled

Heat oil in a large skillet (we used our paella pan) over medium-high heat. Add onions and crushed pepper and cook, stirring occasionally for six minutes until soft and slightly browned. Add garlic, cumin, and paprika, and cook, stirring frequently for 2 minutes. Add diced tomatoes with liquid, reduce heat to medium and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce to medium-low, stir and make six wells in the thick sauce. Crack eggs over wells, cover the pan, and cook for about five minutes, or until yolks have set to desired consistency. Uncover, and baste the eggs with a light coating of the tomato sauce. Sprinkle the feta throughout the pan, turn off the heat, and let sit for 1-2 minutes.  Serve right out of the pan with toasted pita bread and a side of home-fried potatoes.

Glazed Pork Belly with Baked Eggs: Breakfast, Upgraded to Dinner

For our second attempt at pork belly, we were inspired by Cooking Channel's television show "Everyday Exotic" with Chef Roger Mooking. For each episode, Mooking chooses his "obedient ingredient" and creates three or four dishes highlighting that ingredient. You can find the recipes on the show's website. However, when we made this dish, we were living without Internet in the aftermath of Winter Storm Alfred, so our recipe is adapted from the show. 

Pork belly, from which bacon and pancetta are made, is inherently tough, fatty and salty. The ultimate goal is to get the fat rendered into the meat which will make it tender and flavorful. This takes several steps (blanching, simmering, searing, roasting), but the result is definitely worth the effort.

We started the process, as Mooking did, by cutting the pork belly into 1-inch pieces and blanching them in boiling water for about 10 minutes. While the meat was blanching, we made a pickling liquid out of brown sugar, salt, whole cloves, whole peppercorns and apple cider vinegar. We brought half of this liquid to a low boil and simmered the pork belly pieces in it for a half hour. The other half of the pickling liquid we reduced to use as a glaze for finishing the pork belly.

After removing the pork belly from the pickling liquid, we patted it dry with paper towels and seared it on all sides in a very hot cast iron pan. During this time, we prepared our baked eggs for cooking. We then put the pan with the pork belly into the oven along with a cookie sheet on which the dishes with our about-to-be-baked eggs rested. We let everything bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

We made some toast. The timer rang. We drizzled the pork belly into the glaze and plated the dish. We dipped the toast into the creamy baked eggs then bit into the salty sweet smoky crispy glazed pork belly. Oh yeah. This is definitely bacon-and-egg-breakfast upgraded to dinner. Awesome.

Glazed Pork Belly

Ingredients:

1 pound pork belly, cut into 1-inch cubes

4 cups water
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 dozen whole cloves
1 dozen whole peppercorns
3/4 cup brown sugar

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and blanch the pork belly cubes in it for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, make a pickling liquid by mixing the 4 cups of water with the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Bring half of the pickling liquid to a boil. Remove the pork belly using from the blanching water using a slotted spoon or skimmer and place it in the boiling pickling liquid. Allow to simmer in the pickling liquid for 30 minutes.  Remove the pork belly with a slotted spoon or skimmer and pat dry with a paper towel. Heat a cast iron skillet to very hot and sear the pork belly on all sides. Set oven to 400 degrees and place entire cast iron skillet, with pork belly, into the oven; roast for 15 minutes. Place the unused pickling liquid in a saucepan and heat to high; boil until reduced to a 3 or 4 syrupy tablespoons. After removing pork belly from oven, glaze with this "pickling syrup" and serve.