FLOWER POT KITCHEN: CHRISTMAS DAY HAM AND EGGS EN COCOTTE

3 Jan 2019

CHRISTMAS DAY HAM AND EGGS EN COCOTTE

Baked Eggs, Ham, Spinach and Cream Super Easy Crowd Pleaser

This is a wonderful decadent breakfast dish, beautiful Wiltshire ham, butter braised onions, garlic, mushrooms and spinach set with a rich egg, double cream and parmesan sauce, every spoonful is a sumptuous joy, keep these portioned to a standard small ramekin as they are so rich you can’t eat any more than one! This is a great easy crowd pleaser keeping holiday pressure to a minimum, you can easily cook 12-24 in one easy batch.

Prep time 5 minutes / Cooking time 16-18 minutes

Ingredients

(makes 6)

200g fresh spinach

2 cloves garlic chopped

1 shallot finely diced

25g butter

1 glug olive oil

200g chopped mushrooms

200g torn fresh ham of the bone

750ml double cream

6 organic eggs

Himalayan sea salt

Fresh ground black pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 180 C / 356 F, place a large deep roasting tin 3/4 filled with boiling water in the oven. Heat a skillet medium hot, add the butter and olive oil sauté the onions and garlic for around five minutes then add the mushrooms for a further couple of minutes, take off the heat and add the spinach, stir through to wilt, add the ham and stir in, divide between the six ramekins crack one egg into each ramekin then top up with cream, season with a hint of salt and pepper.

Place each ramekin in to your bain marie roasting tin in the oven and bake for 14 minutes for soft gooey runny eggs or 18 minutes for just set whites with a mollet just set yolk. That’s it, remove and serve immediately, these are almost as good as leftovers cold from the fridge.

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.