Baked Eggs with Chorizo, Tomatoes and Spinach

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE !

May 2013 be another memorable year in your life, and God bless you all!

I haven’t been posting anything because my internet is (still!) down and everytime I wanted to post something, the publish button didn’t seem to work but it’s working now so I might spam you with a stream of posts for a couple of days. Please bear with me!

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I have to admit that I am a very uncontrollable spender when it comes to food. While other people spend their salary on shoes, bags and clothes, I spend mine on countless kitchen utensils (that I don’t exactly know when will I ever use them), stocking up my tiny little pantry cupboard and eating out. Those are the reasons why I always feel my salary just went missing every time.

I’m utterly excited to tell you my latest splurge!

A MINI OVEN !!

YES. I FINALLY GOT AN OVEN.

Even more exciting, I got this oven for only $20.

Yup, it is a secondhand oven but it’s still in a very good condition (I even cannot believe how clean the oven was when I first got it. It’s like someone just pop it out of its box. It’s still very shiny and not rusty at all) and most importantly, it still works.

The oven didn’t come with its box and manual, which I don’t mind because the box is not necessary in my opinion and I already got the manual from ManualsOnline.com for the exact product.

Thank God for the internet, huh?

You know that I always go to my friends house to bake because the oven at my house is broken, but now I don’t need to anymore!

Compared to the gas ovens at my friends house, my electric oven is obviously a lot smaller (hence the name – mini) and quiet tricky to use but I am determined to make the best out of it! So probably I will stick to everything mini or anything in a small quantity / single-serve kind of thing .

Ps. Let’s just hope that my electric bill wont go off the roof.

So my first adventure with the oven starts with one of my favourite brunch menu, baked eggs.

If you live in Melbourne and have hopped onto the brunch-frenzy train like I did 2 years ago, I’m sure you’ve heard of Hardware Society.

Yup, that ever so busy brunch place which always have a long queue infront of its door. It was there where I first tried baked eggs.

In the eye of the freshly-moved-to-Australia and a slightly lighter version of me at that time, the name ‘baked eggs’ sounded ridiculous. The only way of cooking eggs that I knew was to fry, boil, boil-then-fry in sambal (telur balado FTW!), scramble, poach and make an omelette out of them. Baked eggs sounds very unfamiliar to me. But I fell in love with it right after I ate it. 

So here's my attempt in making my own baked eggs!

Baked Eggs with Chorizo, Tomatoes and Spinach

Ingredients:

• 1 large egg
• 1/2 big fat chorizo, cut into disks
• 1 tomato, cut into chunks
• 1/4 canned tomatoes
• a handful of baby spinach
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• 1/2 tsp dried chilli
• 1 slice of sourdough toast 
• Parsley for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 180 celcius

2. In a ramekin, mix in tomato chunks, canned tomatoes, salt, pepper and dried chilli. Set aside

3. Wilt the spinach in microwave for a few seconds, drain the excess moisture with a paper towel and scatter them on the ramekin filled with the tomatoes. Set aside

4. Add disks of chorizos in the ramekin, arranging them so they are well placed.

5. Make a small indentation / hole in the middle of the tomato, spinach and chorizos and crack the egg in the hole

6. Drizzle with some olive oil and put it in the oven for 15 minutes (for those who wants a slightly runny yolk) and more than 18 minutes (for those who wants a more cooked yolk, like me). 

7. Garnish it with some chopped parsley and serve with a warm sourdough toast on the side

A mini casserole Pinka gave to me on my birthday :)
Finally using it for the first time!