Egg in a cup

Note: For non-pork eaters, use pastirma or cured beef

It is in my humble opinion that Australia has the best bacon in the world; crispy, only a tad salty and tastes how real bacon should. Australia uses the loin in the middle of the back of the pig which is a lean meaty cut of bacon, with less fat compared to other cuts.  This recipe is a fitting celebration of that.

My little boy treated me like I was the food goddess when I served him this dish the first time one morning. Lol! It  was as if I have moved the famed El Bulli restaurant into our humble abode. When in fact this dish is simply about thinking outside the box or shall I say, pun included, thinking inside a cup.

Enjoy!

*Adapted from http://cafefernando.com

Serves 2

Ingredients

5-6 slices of pastirma (or bacon or ham)

1 tbsp + 1 tsp olive oil

1 large tomato

2 eggs, separated

2 tbsp grated cheese

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preheat your oven to 350F.

To prepare the three minute tomato sauce, peel the tomato and squeeze to remove juice and seeds (if you do this in a bowl, you can use the juice and seeds later in a salad). Chop the tomato finely and cook with 1 tbsp of olive oil for about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and put aside.

Take a muffin tin (if you don’t have one, you can use soufflé cups instead) and oil the cups with 1 tsp of olive oil, place the slices of pastirma inside, leaving a quarter inch overhang from the edge of the cup (be careful not to leave any gaps between or beneath the slices, though). Cook in the oven until crispy, for about 3 minutes.

Take the muffin tin out of the oven, add one teaspoon of tomato sauce on the bottom and place the egg whites on the top. Cook until the whites are slightly stiff (the upper part should still be somewhat transparent, again 2-3 minutes at most).

Take the muffin tin out of the oven again, add one more teaspoon of tomato sauce and place the egg yolks very carefully in the middle. At this point, I recommend to use the lower shelf of the oven (egg yolks cook very quickly and the tops get wrinkled with direct heat). Cook until the egg yolks gently wobble when you shake the muffin cups, for about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle grated cheese on the top and serve hot.