The French love those œuf cocotte. So fancy and yet so quick and easy to make. Very tasty with blue cheese and sautéed shallots that balance cheese.
This is typically the kind of dish we prepare in French homes, without even deciding in advance we will make this. I mean, what’s for dinner, well… let’s see what’s in the fridge. Sometimes not much so cracking an egg, pouring a bit of cream (most French always have cream in the refrigerator) and adding any garnish that is on hand can be a solution, which ends out being fantastic oeuf cocotte, eggs en cocotte.
As for filling, I choose French blue cheese, this one is called Saint Agur but you may replace by Roquefort, Bresse bleu… or blue cheese of your country such as Stilton. To balance the strongness of cheese, there is cream of course and I decided to add sautéed, a bit caramelized sweet shallots. Quite a nice association. That’s it for me but you may want to add bacon, mushrooms…
As for the cooking technique, I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to bake placing casseroles in a baking pan with a bed of water, this recipe is easy and needs to remain simple. I just cook my cocottes for 8 to 10 minutes in the oven, checking regularly the texture, as we want set egg whites and runny egg yolks. I let egg yolks visible here so that the photos could be understandable at first sight but it might harden a bit on the top so don’t hesitate to have the cream covering the egg yolk.
Egg en cocotte with blue cheese
Equipment
- Individual casseroles
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 4 tablespoons cream
- 50 gr blue cheese French cheese or Stilton
- 2 large shallots or 4 small
- 1 tablespoons olive oil
- a few sprigs chives
- 1 nut butter
- salt
- pepper
- 2 slices bread
Instructions
SAUTE SHALLOTS
- Heat the olive oil in a pan, peel and mince shallots, sauté them for 5 minutes until a bit caramelized.
PREPARE THE COCOTTES
- Butter and season with salt and petter the individual casseroles.
- Gently crack 1 egg in each cocotte.
- Arrange the pan-fried shallots and blue cheese cubes all around the yolks.
- Then pour the cream ideally by covering the yellow (not as in the photos, as I left yolk visible to be more comprehensible at first sight).
- Sprinkle with chopped chives.
Bake in the oven
- Bake in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes at 180 °C / 350°F. Often check if cocottes are cooked, ovens are very different from one to the other. As soon as the egg white is set, the egg yolk still soft, take out of the oven and serve immediately.
