Eggs for breakfast. Or anytime. I love them, that should be no secret for any of my friends anymore. So here’s something with eggs, requiring little else apart from a little patience to extract the maximum flavour out of its few ingredients. It’s also pretty easy to make, making for an absolute perfect start of our day. I made them before not long ago, so this time around I played a little with the aromas, nothing groundbreaking however, as I would not mess much with something that’s rather balanced and delicious right out of the gate.

Funny thing, I pressed this dark 500 ml bottle which used to contain Jamie Oliver’s olive oil into regular kitchen service as its just about perfect for the job, but by removing its labels it acts now like a small black hole on my regular ingredients setups. If one would not notice some faint reflections from the neighboring ingredients in it, one would wonder why there’s a gap between the cooking cream and the butter. Anyway, along the ones already mentioned, the ingredients are eggs, green pepper, two kinds of tomato – heirloom and cherry, garlic and Italian parsley. Nothing impressive indeed, just excellent potential for something good to land on our plates in the end.

One way to ensure the silkiness of these eggs is to grate pretty much everything, including the pepper and the garlic and discarding all the skins. Sandra noted that stripping those skins also removes some of the fiber from the dish, maybe next time instead of grating I will pulverize them in the blender instead… will see. I was debating whether to use oregano or rosemary here but somehow I ended up throwing some thyme sprigs in. We have the garlic there as big, bold zing so I thought the delicate thyme will offer a more subtle counterpoint. There’s no need to pick the little leaves apart, the reason for it will become apparent shortly. The grated mix went into a medium hot skillet in which I added olive oil and melted some butter.

Remember I mentioned patience in the beginning of this post? Well you need some to reduce the tomato mix to a rather thick consistency out of all that juicy, wet stuff we started with. The umami in the tomatoes really concentrates this way so you will find there’s little need for salt in adjusting its taste at this stage. Perhaps a pinch is needed to underline the umami even more along some pepper. Also at this point the thyme leaves are already all but stripped away from the sprigs which now can be “cleaned” a bit with the spatula on the side of the skillet and discarded.

The egg mix is my classic one: eggs, cooking cream, salt and pepper only loosely beaten before making it into the skillet. Take your time making the scramble, let the eggs curdle a little, clean the sides of the skillet and slowly integrate the tomato mix in. Remember, this is not an omelette. Don’t agitate things too much and, very importantly, don’t overcook them. We’re not going for popcorn egg nuggets here, but for a creamy, soft texture.

This is how I served it, with a baby spinach, radish and pepper salad and monastery style toast. A bit of balsamic glaze and fresh parsley served as garnish. The result is a dish I would not mind eating for breakfast every day for a good while. It’s the sort of healthy thing you can get a morning boost from, long term without tiring of it too soon. I think I’ll make it more often.