Nid d'oeuf = eggs in a nest = an excellent breakfast, easy, low fat, low carb, easy cleanup. How can you beat that?

Found this in a French cookbook. Can I speak or read French? No, but thanks to Google translate......we all have access to french recipes!

Yummy Nid d'oeuf with crust

Take a look at this! Wonderfully easy, low fat, low carb (well, except for the pastry that you don't HAVE to have).
So, here's the recipe: (serves one - add it up for more, or just use one egg per person)

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese
Sprinkle of cream of tartar....not necessary but I have it on hand. Don't go out and buy it just for this. It helps to stabilize the whipped whites.

METHOD

1 Preheat the oven to 450°F with a rack in the middle. Line a roasting pan, or baking sheet that can take high temperatures without warping, with parchment paper or Silpat. You can see I have a Silpat sheet. NOT necessary, use parchment paper and you just toss it...NO clean up!

2 Separate whites from yolk. Make sure there are no little pieces of egg yolk in the whites or you will have difficulty getting the whites to beat properly. It helps if you are making more than one egg nest to keep each egg yolk in a separate prep bowl. I put them all in the same bowl. 2 of 4 yolk broke. It STILL tasted great.

3 Place the egg whites in a very clean mixer bowl (any residual oil in the mixer bowl will keep the egg whites from whipping up properly). Add a quarter teaspoon of salt to the egg whites. Beat the egg whites with a whisk attachment in a mixer (or using a hand mixer), starting on low speed and then slowly increasing to high speed, until stiff peaks form. Add the cream of tartar here too. I like to beat egg whites by hand....it's just very satisfying and I like the control.

I used 4 eggs, 2 each. You can see I broke 2 yolks :-(

4 Gently fold in the grated Gruyere cheese, taking care not to deflate the egg whites.

Whites whipped, time to fold in cheese

The little "nests"

5 Create two mounds of the egg white mixture on the lined baking sheet. Form the mounds so they look like nests, with indentations in the centers.

6 Place in the oven for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, open the oven, pull out the rack with the egg white nests, and gently add an egg yolk to the center of each nest. Return the baking sheet to the oven and cook for 3 more minutes.

Nests baking - looks like it's working!

Initial bake done. Add the egg yolks.

7 While I was mixing the egg whites and while the oven was warming up I had some left over pastry crust from earlier. I thought.....WHY NOT use this? (I hate to throw out perfectly good pastry dough). Took it out and off the Silpat before making the nests. Added YUM!

NEVER waste pastry dough!

Serve immediately.

And now (again) the finished product: You can see I added some grated cheddar, diced red onion, and ground pepper before putting it back in the oven for the final finishing baking. I have a convection oven, but not necessary....!

Again, the finished product!

I can NOT eat eggs without Tabasco sauce. Next time I make it, I'll put a few drops on top before the final bake.