An Apple to Astonish Paris

Potatoes! The French call them pommes de terre, apples of the earth. I adore them. Baked, mashed, fried-- red, blue, yellow: you name it. Potatoes are one of the most satisfying foods ever. Therefore, I am not supposed to eat them. Or anything else with a high glycemic index value, like white rice, French bread, plantains ... Sigh.

Even though potatoes are no longer part of my regular diet, every once in a while I have to indulge in the dish below. It's just SO GOOD, and so simple, even Paris couldn't resist these "apples."

DS loves it, and has been asking for it. So when I announced we were having Idaho Sunrise for dinner, he was PSYCHED! It's a wonderful dish for a busy day, particularly if you're going to be at home being busy. It takes a while to make, but most of that is waiting time, waiting for the potatoes to cook. This is my adaptation on Marion Cunningham's recipe from The Supper Book. It's basically a baked potato with a delicious egg baked on top, and DS loves it so much I've named it after him.

The recipe below makes 3 servings, but you can adjust it up or down easily, since a potato is one serving. For the first time, I made these in individual gratin dishes, and it was much easier! I highly recommend doing it this way if you happen to have some.

Stefan's Idaho Sunrise

3 large baking potatoes (preferably russets)
Extra-virgin olive oil (optional)
2 T softened butter + 1 T melted butter
3/4 c. half and half
1 lg. garlic clove
salt and pepper to taste
3 eggs (preferably organic, free-range, extra-large)

Preheat the oven to 400 F.
1. Wash the potatoes well and dry them.
2. Prick them thoroughly all over with a fork, so the steam can escape while these are baking and they'll be nice and fluffy.

3. Rub the potato skins with some olive oil. (Optional, but it makes the skins nice and crisp for enjoying later)

4. Place the potatoes on the oven rack and bake until the skins are crisp and the potatoes are tender when squeezed, about 1 hr. (Use a potholder when you squeeze!)

5. Just before the potatoes are ready to come out of the oven, place the half and half in a glass measure. Using a garlic press, crush the garlic clove into the measuring cup with the half and half. Heat the cream and garlic in the microwave until warmed through.

6. Remove the potatoes from the oven.

Increase the oven temperature to 450 F.

7. Using a potholder to hold the potato, carefully slice a thin lengthwise slice off the top of each potato with a serrated knife.

8. Gently scoop out the flesh inside each potato, leaving a thin shell of flesh. Try to avoid tearing the skin.

9. Place the hot potato flesh into the bowl of a standing mixer. Add 2 T of butter and salt and pepper to taste.

10. With the mixer on low speed, pour in the warm cream and garlic mixture and process until cream is incorporated and the potatoes are mashed and fluffy. You may need more or less cream depending on how loose you like your mashed potatoes. It's easier to stuff the potatoes if the filling is not too stiff.

11. Taste the mashed potato mixture and add more salt, pepper, or butter to taste.
12. Fill each potato shell with mashed potato.


13. Create a well in the center of each potato for the egg.

14. Place each potato into a greased gratin dish, or onto a foil lined baking sheet.
15. Break an egg into a teacup. Pour the egg into the well in the mashed potato in one potato shell, being careful not to let it overflow.


16. Repeat with remaining eggs and potatoes.

17. Spoon 1 t. of melted butter over each egg, and add salt and pepper to taste.


18. Bake for 15-20 min, or until the egg white is set but the yolk is still soft, and the potato filling is beginning to brown.



I often serve these potatoes with a few slices of good cheddar cheese. (I love the skins, so sometimes I save a slice or 2 of my cheese to stuff inside the skin once I've eaten all the egg and mashed potato.)

To go along with the potatoes, I also made some Warp-Speed Tomato Soup. If you can open a can and stir, you can make this soup in about 10 minutes.


I love the flavors of orange and tomato together. This is a basic tomato-bisque style soup.

One note on the tomatoes: the last couple of times I've used them, the Progresso tomatoes were less pureed than I'm used to. If you'd like the soup less chunky, give the tomatoes a quick blitz in the food processor before adding them to the soup, or alternatively, use an immersion blender when they are in the saucepan.

WarpSpeed Tomato Soup

Here are the ingredients:
1 32 oz. can Progresso Crushed Tomatoes
2 c. chicken broth
zest of 1 orange, grated
1/2 c. heavy cream
1 t. kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of sugar (if needed)

1. Combine the tomatoes and the chicken broth in a 2 qt. or larger saucepan.
Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes or so.


2. Taste; if the tomatoes seem overly acidic, add a pinch of sugar.

3. Add the orange zest and the cream, and stir to combine. Remove from the heat.


4. Add 1 t. salt (more to taste, sometimes this soup needs more salt than you would imagine) and pepper to taste.


Serve in warmed mugs.

How to Boil an Egg

Call me crazy, but there IS a best way to boil an egg, and not everyone knows the secret! And a well-cooked hard-boiled egg is not only delicious, it is a thing of beauty.

For many years, I could not STAND hard-boiled eggs. They were rubbery, with a distinct flavor of sulfur, and worst of all, the yolks had a disturbing gray-green tinge. Then I learned that these unpleasant characteristics were caused by over-cooking (Cookwise, p. 199). The icky green color in the egg yolk is a result of the iron in the egg yolk combining with the sulfur in the egg white to produce the green compound, iron sulfide. Heat acts as a catalyst for this reaction-- the longer the egg is cooked, the greater the chance of getting a "green" yolk.

Here is how to produce a delicious hard-cooked egg with a beautiful golden yolk (I learned this from Sara Moulton's excellent cookbook, p. 4).

1. Place the eggs in a tall saucepan and add cold water to cover the eggs by 1 inch.


2. Put the pan on the burner over high heat, cover, and just bring to a boil-- watch carefully!



3. AS SOON as the eggs come to a boil, REMOVE the pan from the heat. Cover the pan, and let the eggs rest for EXACTLY 15 minutes. This is important to keep the eggs from overcooking.


4. After 15 minutes, remove the eggs from the pan and place in a bowl filled with half ice and half water. Submerge them in the ice water (this stops the egg from continuing to cook). Quick cooling also helps keep the yolk from turning green.


5. Allow the eggs to cool completely-- they can sit there until you are ready to either peel them or store them. (Eggs that are stored in the shell are a little harder to peel. And be sure to take a pencil and mark them with an "X"-- so you won't mix them up with your uncooked eggs!)


6. Voila! Perfectly cooked eggs with no greenish tinge!



Here are a few egg tips and tricks (from Cookwise, p. 198-199, and Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, p. 5).

1. The best place to store eggs is NOT in the egg holder in the fridge door. To keep eggs at their best, they should be stored in the coldest part of the refrigerator. This means on one of the shelves, and at the BACK of the fridge, FAR AWAY from the door.

2. Did you know that older eggs (7-10 days old) are better for making hard-boiled eggs than fresh ones? This is because older eggs are easier to peel. Very fresh eggs, in fact, are nearly impossible to peel (without destroying them). This is because as an egg ages, it develops an air pocket. The larger the air pocket, the easier the egg is to peel. Very fresh eggs have almost no air pocket.

3. How can you tell how old an egg is? Put the egg (uncooked, in its shell) in a bowl of water. Observe its behavior. A very fresh egg will lie flat on its side. An egg that stands up is a bit older and good for boiling. If the egg floats, toss it! It is past its prime.
Fresh Egg: Not so good for boiling (it's lying down)


Older Egg: Good for Boilng! (Standing up)


4. Adding salt to the cooking water helps the egg white to cook a little faster and seal any hairline cracks in the egg. Quick cooking, as well as quick cooling, helps keep egg yolks from turning green.

5. How can you get boiled eggs with perfectly centered yolks and perfectly formed, even egg whites? The night before you plan to cook the eggs, turn the egg carton on its side in the fridge. (Make sure the carton is closed well, of course!) According to research, eggs stored on their sides produce the most consistently centered yolks. Eggs with centered yolks make the prettiest stuffed, or "devilled", eggs. If you have an egg rack, cooking the eggs upright also helps center the yolks.

Now that you know how to cook a perfect hard-boiled egg with a perfectly centered yolk, here is a terrific recipe for "Stuffed Eggs." It is from Jane Watson Hopping's The Pioneer Lady's Country Christmas. These eggs are quite different from the usual devilled eggs, and the fresh lemon juice really kicks up the flavor! DS is CRAZY about these stuffed eggs-- he loves them with extra lemon.

Delicious Stuffed Eggs

6 hard-cooked eggs
1/4 t. dry mustard
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. black pepper
1 T VERY FINELY chopped sweet onion
1 T fresh lemon juice (more to taste)
3 T sour cream
Mayonnaise, for adjusting texture as needed
Paprika and parsley, for garnishing

1. Peel the eggs and cut each in half length-wise. Remove the yolks and place in a medium, non-reactive bowl. Set the whites cut side up on a serving platter.
2. Mash the yolks with a fork. If you wish, you can also force through a sieve. Stir in the dry mustard, salt, and pepper.
3. Blend in the onion, lemon juice, and sour cream. Add enough mayonnaise to make the filling creamy and light.
4. Spoon the filling into the egg whites. (Alternatively, you can use a pastry bag fitted with a large open star tip to pipe filling into shells.)
5. Dust the stuffed eggs with paprika and garnish the platter with parsley.

One of these would be nice to have:

The Egg and I

DS and I are crazy for eggs. We love 'em-- baked, boiled, fried, with toast, in soup, on potatoes: you name it! We eat eggs for dinner in one form or another about once a week. And of course, nothing cheers DS up like the old "breakfast for dinner" trick. Lucky for us, the American Egg Board assures us that "decades of research [have] shown no association between egg intake and heart disease risk."

Seriously, to me, an egg is practically the perfect food: not only is it dee-licious, it comes in its own cute carrying case, contains high-quality protein and 13 essential nutrients, includes both healthy monosaturated and polyunsaturated fats, and has only 75 calories! Also, when you compare nutritional value to cost, eggs (even the fancy organic, free-range eggs I buy) are one of the best food buys around! I can get at least six servings of high-quality protein out of a dozen eggs for about $2.

I know I'm kind of compulsive when it comes to food safety and quality, but health concerns aside, the organic, free-range eggs I buy TASTE significantly better than regular old grocery store ones. Sure, they cost more, by maybe $1 per dozen. To me, it's well worth the small additional cost for the higher quality and better flavor. And since I know the eggs I buy come from healthy, happy, local chickens, I have no qualms about serving soft-cooked eggs to my family. (It's a sad commentary on our national food production system when we have to worry about salmonella getting into an egg before the shell is even formed!)

There is almost nothing better in the world than a really fresh, perfectly-cooked 4-minute egg with salt, fresh ground black pepper, and a bit of butter.

I thought I would share some of my egg recipes in future posts, and hope you will enjoy them as much as DS and I do!

In the meantime, here are some fun EGG-Cessories!

Egg Coddlers


I bought my egg coddlers at Harrods in London. They are a fun way to cook and serve eggs. You put a raw egg in the china cup, add then some butter, salt, pepper, heavy cream, grated cheese, chopped mushrooms, herbs, tomatoes, or whatever you like, to season the egg. Then screw on the lid (not too tightly), and put the coddlers in a saucepan with water to cover. Bring to a boil, and cook to your liking. I find that cooking about 5 minutes after the water comes to a boil produces an egg with a set white and soft yolk.

Egg Cups and Egg Topper



Don't the English just think of everything? Yet another way to serve boiled eggs. I love my little rooster egg cups and topper that I got at Williams-Sonoma! I have astonished and amazed DC with these. Traditionally, soft cooked eggs are placed large-end up in an egg cup for serving. You use the egg topper to cut the end off the egg so it can be eaten while in its little cup (note: the photo shows the topper cutting off the small end of the egg, which is the opposite of how it is usually done). The eggs are eaten by dipping toast fingers into the shell, or using an itty bitty spoon. (We just peel off a bit more of the shell and eat them with regular teaspoons like savages.)

Egg Rings


I don't have any egg rings, but find them amusing. These are useful for producing perfectly round fried eggs-- you can make your own pretty little eggs for "mc-muffins" this way. These particular ones are coated with non-stick finish and have a little quick-release lever. I have also seen suggestions for making your own by cutting off the tops and bottoms of tuna cans. You'd have to grease them pretty well, I'd think, and be very careful not to get burned when removing them from the eggs.

Egg Rack

You put this in your saucepan and then the eggs go in the little holes so they can be boiled upright. It keeps the eggs from banging against each other and cracking and also helps keep the yolks centered. (I don't have one of these either.)

Egg Slicer



Nope, don't have this, either, but think it might be useful. I think you can turn the egg the other way once it's sliced to and make another pass to produce diced eggs. I also think that some of these are strong enough to slice mushrooms, tomatoes, and avocadoes as well, depending on the make/model, so it can be used for more than one purpose. Actually, I think I'm remembering the "alligator" chopper from the Williams-Sonoma catalog, which it appears they no longer carry. But an egg slicer would still be a nice thing to have! :)