Irish Baked Eggs

This recipe comes from “The Ballykissangel Cookbook”. Ballykissangel being the fictional Irish village of the popular BBC TV drama series of the same name, that was aired a few years ago. This is a simple vegetarian supper dish that can be varied endlessly and easily adapted to suit your personal tastes. Ingredients are per person so this can be made for just one person or sized up to feed the family (If you’re making for more than one and are not cooking this in individual portions you’ll probably find that you don’t need as much milk per person; you’ll also find you need to adjust cooking times upwards). We found this to be a meal in itself so I simply serve it with some crusty bread.

• Ready In: 40 mins
• Serves: 1

Ingredients

• 1  celery rib
• 1  medium potato, peeled
• 1  small carrot, peeled
• 2  button mushrooms
• 1  garlic clove, peeled and sliced
• 1  spring onion, chopped (scallion)
• 1⁄2 ounce butter
• 1  tomatoes, sliced
• 1  teaspoon cornflour (cornstarch)
• 5  fluid ounces milk
•  salt and pepper
• 2  eggs
•  grated cheese, to finish

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 160 C, 325 F, gas mark 3.
2. Chop the celery, potato and carrot finely, place in a pot and add just enough water to cover the vegetables.
3. Bring to the boil , simmer for 5 minutes then drain; place vegetables into an ovenproof soup bowl.
4. Slice the mushrooms and fry them in the butter until softened with the spring onion and garlic; layer over vegetables in the bowl then place the tomato slices on top of that.
5. Pour the milk into a saucepan; mix the cornflour with a small amount of the vegetable cooking water and add to the milk; bring to the boil stirring constantly, then season the milk and pour over the vegetables.
6. Place the soup bowl in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the mixture starts to bubble; remove from the oven and with the back of a spoon press down onto the mixture to make one dent for each egg; crack the eggs into the dents.
7. Sprinkle with a little grated cheese and return bowl to the oven for about 5 minutes until the cheese has melted and the eggs are set but not hard.