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Breakfast Baskets

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Yum, yum, yum – what a great, neat and tidy breakfast.  No bacon fat to clear up, no greasy frying pan to wash, and they are delicious to boot.  I wish I had thought of this recipe!

I had some prosciutto in the fridge that was begging to be used, so I decided to make these yesterday morning.  They are soooo simple to make and look quite impressive, I’d recommend serving them in their ramekins and people can tip them out if they want to – I ate mine from the ramekin and it was fine. The one I tipped out looked quite messy. I served them with toast, but next time I do them I’ll slow roast some roma tomatoes and sprinkle them with oregano and basil.  I think they’d go together beautifully. I thought about making Hollandaise Sauce as well, but my jeans are already getting tight!

I sent a certain someone down to the supermarket last night to get the pure cream, and they returned empty handed…well, not quite as they picked up creme fraiche and the Philadelphia cooking cream as apparently pure cream was nowhere to be seen. Funnily enough, there it was this morning in the supermarket…lots of it!! Anyway, I used the Philadephia cooking cream as it had less fat. It was ok and certainly tasted good, but there was a bit of water in the bottom of the ramekins and this might have been caused by the cooking cream.  I’d squeezed out the spinach pretty well, so I don’t think that was the culprit.

Dani has done the recipe for 10 breakfast baskets at once, but I just did the three, and scaled down the quantities.  I put them on the bottom tray of the varoma and propped them up with egg rings again.  Dani didn’t mention propping them up in her recipe, so I’m not sure if I did the right thing… I cooked them for the length of time for soft and they were definitely on the hard side.  So if you’re doing them, keep an eye on them if you want them to be soft and runny in the middle.

You might also want to not be so generous with the salt when you add it, as the prosciutto makes this a pretty salty dish without adding any extra.  I’m a salt fiend and it was fine for me, but other people might find it a little overpowering.

These would be great to cook if you were expecting large numbers of people for a breakfast or a brunch.  They could be prepared earlier and then stuck in the varoma for cooking just before serving.  Just make sure all your ramekins will fit in the varoma at once, and make sure the steam can get through.

 
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Posted by on June 18, 2012 in Recipes

 

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Hainanese Chicken and Egg

This is a recipe in a few stages, so it does take quite a bit of time – although a lot of it is handsfree, hassle free cooking – one of the things I love most about my thermomix.  You do the basics, set it, press the button, and walk away – and when you come back, dinner is made!  What could be easier?

This recipe is from Trissa Lopez (see her website at trissalicious.com).

I have only had Hainanese Chicken and Egg a few times in my life – but one of them was a meal that stands out in my memory.  I was in Singapore, coming home from a long work trip.  I was exhausted, sick of eating airline food and hotel food, and just wanted to sit on a bed and watch TV and try and feel like I had a life. I saw this dish on the room service menu.  I ordered it, and it was divine.  Real comfort food!  I still haven’t had one that matches the Singapore experience, but this one was pretty good!

If you wanted to make it a little quicker (it takes 3 hours, plus extra time for brining the chicken) you could do the rice the conventional way, or do the poached egg the traditional way.  For mine, I love the way that the thermomix cooks rice AND poached eggs, so I used it for both.  The thermomix poached eggs are a little time consuming…but amazing – and no pan to clean up. I always thermomix my poached eggs now – they are just so good.

Want the recipe?  Check the recipe tab on my home page!

There are four steps to this recipe.  You brine the chicken, then cook that in the flavoured oil that you make.  Then you cook the rice and poach the eggs, then serve.  The eggs are best if you cook them just before serving.

Here are my tips:

I made the brining mixture first.  I always use raw sugar now I have a thermomix, and the salt I used was rock salt.  Because I didn’t want to put the chicken in warm water (which I suspect I would have needed to use to dissolve the sugar and the salt), I put in the the TM bowl to weigh, and then blitzed it for a few seconds to break it down a bit.  Then I poured the mix into a big bowl, and added the wet ingredients.  It must have worked as there was no residue at the bottom of the bowl after the brining was finished.  Brining the chicken makes it amazingly tender, really falling apart kind of tender – delicious!

The flavoured oil is dead easy.  I cleaned the ginger and then cut it into slices – they weren’t too thin.  Once the oil is finished, it takes on a cloudy appearance, so I found it difficult to put the thighs in between the blades.  Next time I’ll empty the oil into another bowl or jug, arrange the chicken between the blades, and then pour the oil over the top.

I used free range, skinless chicken thighs.  Next time I’ll do the skin on, as I think I prefer the crunchy skin once you’ve pan fried them for a few minutes at the end.  If I had have arranged the thighs a little better between the blades, then I wouldn’t have had to keep peeking to see how the cooking was going – I think my prodding broke some of the thighs up a little… I had a few perfect ones, and a few that ended up in pieces.

Rice cooking in a thermomix is a dream.  Perfect rice, every single time!  I think next time I’ll cook the rice in chicken stock rather than plain water, as I think it gives the rice more flavour.  But that’s just a personal preference.

Overall, a good recipe – one that I’d never attempted to make before.  I’m glad I did!!

 
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Posted by on April 24, 2012 in Main meals

 

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