Waiter, Someone Stuffed Eggs in My Tomato!

I've missed a couple of editions of the huge "Waiter, There's Something In..." event, and to be quite frank, I almost let this one go by, too, out of sheer lack of attentiveness. On Friday, I finally noticed Jeanne of Cook Sister had chosen stuffed vegetables for this month's theme. In the end I had to scramble a bit to find something I wanted to try out, and stumbled upon this recipe at Epicurious.


I know, right? It was just a bit fiddly for me, so I decided to fiddle some more. For one thing, my eggs were large; my tomatoes weren't. Out went the romaine pesto (although in retrospect it would probably have worked very well there), in came separation of yolks and whites. One of the whites I mixed with goat cheese, parmesan, and crumbled bacon (I thought pancetta might be too flimsy, and besides I had some bacon I needed to dispose of). Then I just spooned a bit of the white mixture into the carved-out tomatoes, carefully poured a yolk into each, and topped with some more cheese paste. Sprinkle with some extra parmesan and into the oven.


The amount of cheese mixture given would probably fill three or four tomatoes of this size - I mixed in the extra white and another whole egg and made a frittata.

Egg, Goat Cheese & Bacon-Stuffed Tomatoes
inspired by Gourmet Sept 2006, serves 2

2 eggs
2 large tomatoes
80 g soft goat cheese
30 g + 1 tbsp freshly grated parmesan
4 rashers bacon
1 tbsp chopped basil
salt & pepper

Fry the bacon until crisp, drain on paper towels. When cooled a bit, crumble into largeish pieces.

Separate the eggs, discarding one of the whites (or putting it aside for something else) and gently sliding each yolk into a bowl of cold water. Take the remaining white and whisk it with goat cheese and pepper until well blended. Stir in parmesan, basil and bacon, check taste to see if it needs salt.



Cut the top off each tomato and remove pulp & seeds with a spoon. Spoon some of the cheese mixture into each tomato "bowl," leaving room for the yolk in the middle, then carefully pour the yolks in and top with more of the cheesy stuff, trying not to break the yolks while you do so. Sprinkle with the rest of the parmesan and bake at 200°C (400°F) for about 15 minutes.